You're reading: #16 Richest: Oleh Bakhmatyuk, 36

$700 million Married with three daughters Interests: agribusiness

Oleh Bakhmatyuk called his decision to peddle the most low-cost yet most nutritious food available to humans a business “hunch.”

It has led him to become the number one producer of eggs and dry egg products in Ukraine with a market share of approximately 23 percent (including 39 percent of industrially produced eggs) and 52 percent, respectively, in 2009.

Under his London-traded Avangard company, the Ivano-Frankivsk native has seen revenue double from $127.8 million to $320 million in 2007-2009.

We are the engine of the industry.”

– Oleh Bakhmatyuk.

“We are the engine of the industry,” he told the Kyiv Post in a July interview, adding that Avangard’s closest competitors lag far behind.

Bakhmatyuk’s story shows that he, like many of Ukraine’s wealthiest, rubbed shoulders with the nation’s leading powerbrokers, working in top management positions in state oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukraine from 2005 to 2007.

Avangard raised around $210 million in June floating a 20 percent of company shares on the London Stock Exchange.

But in order for Ukraine to realize its ambition as a major world food producer, it’s going to take more than the success of a few successfully traded companies, according to Bakhmatyuk.

In addition to owning Avangard and the CB Financial Initiative, a bank, Bakhmatyuk is also head of Ukrlandfarming, a company that grows grain and breeds cattle.

The Cyprus-based concern has 110,000 hectares of land under management and owns 26,000 head of cattle livestock producing beef and milk.