Alex Gerko.
Photo: Personal page of the hero of the post on the social network.
UK authorities recently released statistics on the people who paid the most tax into the country’s budget, and it was somewhat surprising. It turned out that the main “sponsor” of the treasury is not the owner of a large corporation and not a gentleman from an old family, but a native of Russia, who recently received British citizenship.
According to The Independent, we are talking about a native of Moscow, Alex Gerko (that is, Alexander Alexandrovich Gerko), who founded the company XTX Markets in 2015 and since then has been one of the company’s leaders. Now his business has grown to such an extent that the former Russian pays 10% of the income of the 100 richest individuals in the United Kingdom -487.4 million pounds (603 million dollars).
The 43-year-old Gerko’s career is quite unusual. At first he was a mathematician, and we even managed to find a businessman’s doctoral thesis, which he defended in 2004. The name “Homological dimensions and semi-dualizing complexes” says little to the common man, but, apparently, Russian was good not only in theory but also in practice.
According to Bloomberg, Gerko first worked at Deutsche Bank and in 2009 moved to the hedge fund GSA Capital. In 2015, apparently realizing that he had accumulated enough experience in finance, he founded his own company XTX Markets in London, where he owns a 75% stake.
XTX Markets is dedicated to the automation of trading on the stock exchange, allowing you to make the decision to buy or sell a particular security in just seconds. People cannot compete with such machines purely physically, therefore, if you set up the algorithms correctly, you can manage to convert profitable trades on the stock exchange in seconds.
The turnover is growing rapidly, and in 2021 the capitalization has grown by 42%, the company’s representative office was opened in New York, Paris. Mumbai and even Yerevan. The years 2020 and 2022 turned out to be especially successful, when due to the coronavirus pandemic and the start of the SVO, the markets began to have a fever, and it was very difficult for a person to make a decision in such an environment, because the weight of responsibility and uncertainty crushed. Machines don’t have such feelings, so they made bold decisions and exchanged millions in winnings.
And with our country, Gerko, apparently, completely broke up. Last year, he renounced his Russian citizenship and supported the West’s position on events in Ukraine. He now he remains just a subject of Great Britain, to whose allegiance he swore allegiance in 2016. And he helps British children to develop their skills, because the former Russian is the founder of the Mathematical Education for Social Mobility program and Outstanding Achievement. At the same time, the businessman also sponsors the University of Oxford, where he awards a scholarship to female graduate students.
But the nouveau riche did not want to give money to his alma mater, Moscow State University and the Russian school that raised him and gave him a “start in life.” After all, now the native coast for him is on the Thames.
