The Saxo Bank team unveiled a new co-sponsor today: Tinkoff Bank. The team will now be called Saxo Bank – Tinkoff Bank, a mouthful that will be awkward to pronounce and type.
It marks the return of Oleg Tinkov to the sport. A Russian entrepreneur, he is a lively character with a past unlike almost anyone else in the sport.
Aged 44, Oleg Tinkov (Олег Тиньков) was born on 25 December 1967 but it was a day like any other as Russians don’t celebrate Christmas on this day. Instead we can focus on the year he was born since it means he was in his early twenties when the Soviet Union fell apart. By then he’d left his home town of Leninsk-Kuznetsky and its mines to move to St Petersburg although he started studying at a mining institute. But he was also racing a bike and started to dabble in business. His first break happened during a cycling race when at one point in the late 1980s he was in Uzbekistan for a race and spotted some blue denim jeans, then the height of fashion and above all very rare. He spent all his cash to buy four pairs of jeans on sale at 35 roubles each but the seller realised he wanted several pairs and upped the price to 50 roubles. Tinkov bought them and returned to St Petersburg where he sold them for 200 roubles each. He carried on with printer cartridges, caviar and cars.
The studies stopped prematurely and he became a full-time entrepreneur. Russia was poor but Russian goods were often even poorer and he started importing consumer electronics from Asia. Walkmans, stereos and CD players. He opened a shop and business was good, soon he had branded retail chain in and around St Peterburg called “Technoshock”, then alongside this a chain of record stores called “Musicshock” and even a recording studio too. He sold these in 1997 for US$7 million.
Tinkov switched into the food business, creating “Daria”, business that made pelemeni or Russian dumplings. A few years later he sold the business to the up and coming oligarch Roman Abramovich. With the money he started a brewery in St Petersburg called Tinkoff. Note the -ff, he borrowed the name from a street that sounded a bit like his name and created a story about the brewery serving the Imperial family, only this was a fake tale designed to lend authenticity and heritage to the new brand. In 2005 he sold the brewery for a genuine €200 million to InBev of Belgium, the world’s largest brewer was keen to get into the Russian market. But he kept hold of some of the rights to a brand and opened a chain of restaurants trading under the name of the beer. Which he again sold, this time in 2009.
By this time Tinkoff was also getting involved in pro cycling. Flush with cash for 2006 he started a domestic team called Tinkoff Restaurants and for 2007 this went international but under the name of Tinkoff Credit Systems, hiring some Italians and non-Russians, including the American Tyler Hamilton. The team rode the Giro d’Italia in 2008 with two stage wins, Vasil Kiriyenka took one and Pavel Brutt the other but at the end of the year Tinkov sold the team to Russian gas oligarch Igor Makarov. But Tinkoff found he was being frozen out of his own team by Makarov in the bid to create the “Russian Global Cycling Project”, or Team Kremlin. He went complaining to cyclingnews.com about “a lot of politics – there are a lot of people behind Makarov” and then dumping criticism on team manager Tchmil.
“He is a great cyclist, but he is a very poor sports manager and sports director. He brings in Serge Parsani; he is basically starting to bring all of his friends into the team. I said, ‘Andrei, that is not what you want to do, you want to get the best people out of the market, not your friends.”
Maybe Tinkov had an axe to grind and enjoyed doing it via the media but we can see Tinkov’s businessman side at work here, offering management tips. Certainly the Katusha team was run in Tchmil’s way and never delivered results; Tchmil was moved out for 2012.
Today Tinkoff Bank is not the usual bank you might expect. It doesn’t have a big network of branches, it’s more in line with Tinkov’s entrepreneurial streak as a light-footed financial services company offering online banking and above all, credit cards.
Political ambitions? What is this? It is terrible. You do not need this. I shit on politics
Tinkov is completely different from the stereotype Russian oligarch businessman with close links to politics. Tinkov has few friends in high and low places and if he struck it lucky during the 1990s, it seems to be by trading hard rather than playing hard.
A personality cult is too strong but he’s a known figure in Russia because he’s often giving tips on how to succeed in business and is visibly linked to his business, often starring in the adverts. He’s similar in some respects to Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur who went from a record label to all sorts of products and services under the Virgin label, notably several airlines. Branson even wrote the intro for one of Tinkov’s books.
The tips are dispensed whether people want them or not via books, a website, Twitter and even a dedicated Youtube channel called “Biz Secrets”. It might seem normal for a top entrepreneur to self-promote but this is almost unique in Russia. Russian Forbes lists him amongst nine eccentric people in business.
So what’s he doing in cycling?
I’ve lost count of the number of times I wrote “Tinkov sold…” above. He has a track record of creating a venture and then selling it it on. He even did this with a cycling team when Katusha was created.
But he’s a keen cyclist and being wealthy he can play around with a team in the way you might toy with Velogames. This sponsorship fits the mould of another sugar-daddy entering the sport, putting their name into sponsorship but for personal reasons ahead of business rationale. Good for him.
But there are business reasons to invest in a cycling team if you are patient. For starters, Tinkoff is effectively teaming up with Alberto Contador meaning other sponsors could be found to share the burden given the near-certainty that the Spaniard will return to winning ways once his ban ends. But the teams – Saxo Bank included – are exploring ways to reshape the sport and Tinkoff now gets a front seat here.
Tinkov’s business drive and capital should be a boost for Bjarne Riis and his team. Already Tinkov is making loud noises about wanting to sign new riders. So far Fabian Cancellara and Vasil Kiriyenka are top of the shopping list. And Jacob Fuglsang is very likely to join.
- Note Saxo Bank and Tinkoff Bank might both be called banks but they’re not the traditional form. Saxo offers brokerage services around the world whilst Tinkoff offers consumer credit for Russians.
Summary
A Russian businessman, Tinkov is the opposite of shady or politically-connected. He loves the limelight and tries hard to portray himself as the Mr Transparent of Russian business, supporting the little guy against overlapping Russian big business and big government. He’s a keen cyclist, indeed it was thanks to racing that he spotted some jeans for sale and events started.
He’s back and it’ll be interesting to see where the team goes next.
Excellent reading. Impressive that he can sell eveyrthing all the time. Even a cycling team!
A good read, thanks. Nice to see someone spend their money in the sport, this time it is a big spend.
fantastic writeup. always enjoy reading your stuff, its always very interesing and has more depth than any of the corporate cycling websites. thanks!
+1
A really nice article. You never see such in-depth reporting in the typical cycling mags.
Thank you, a very good read, just knew that you would put something up, don’t know what we all would do without you 🙂
Danish TV just showed a little something with Tinkov, and it confirmed the portrait you give of a lively character. He visited the little mermaid, was not very impressed and commented that she should be made of gold, and that he would come back and kiss her next year if the team won the TdF, even if he risked being arrested by the police if it was not allowed to crawl out to her.
As for signing riders and staff I am pretty sure that the only one with a say in those matters is Riis, Saxo has never interfered in that and I would guess that it is in the sponsor contract that Riis is the only one to decide those things.
First of all, great article..
xys, well yes the danish tv stations and newspapers/online medias, should really read some of the many good blogs from inrng.com, and lean a thing or two.
Next season (2013) may well be Bjarnes return two the big stage, whit the best team, for the three big tours.
We must just hope that it is not at the expense of all the Danish cycling talent.
ROLF ER REN
Before the ‘Tinkov Credit Systems’ ProContinental team in 2007, there was the Tinkov Restaurants Continental team (2006), in which Oleg Tinkov was a rider. No victories are recorded against his name at Cycling Archives, though.
Simply great, once again. Did you find this stuff online/books/contacts? . . .
Great stuff, INRNG.
i was thinking about this guy and how he got kicked off his own team on the bike not two weeks ago! funny how he has now popped back up!
Thanks for the great article and the insight. Hoping that Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank will make transfer season even more interesting.
Yes, with Jakob Fuglsang likely joining Contador at SB-TB, it’s a solid start. And if they land Cancellara as they wish, then it’s a super start! Or will he follow the Schlecks?
I’ve been curious about the possibility of the rumored German-backed Schleck brothers et al. 2013 team, and who might leave RadioShack to go that direction. Kim Andersen at the helm, sans Bruyneel, who may be out of the sport for awhile or altogether.
Another interesting transfer season, indeed☺
…and what about Jens? Intrigue abounds!
I was wondering when he would resurface in cycling. I really liked his parting words for Tchmil at the time and they stuck with me. First thing I thought of when your article popped up.
Good read thanks.
I always find these kinds of profiles to be my favorite pieces from INRNG. This provides so much more context to the sponsorship story, thanks!
Very interesting piece.
Tinkoff… “Note the -ff, he borrowed the name from a street that sounded a bit like his name”. I think it’s actually the same name under a different, equally valid, transliteration. Like Smirnov and Smirnoff are the same name. Actually Tinkoff is more accurate phonetically (since the last voiced consonant loses its voicing).
Yes, a similar thing. It’s Тинькофф for the business name and Тиньков for the man.
shades of Bernard Tapie?
echo all that’s been said above, fascinating story
and he’s a genuine guy *poses with puppy*
🙂
Very interesting insight, thanks.
russian del boy… lmao
Good article, always interesting when a Character comes into the sport.
Well, from this, he seems like a good guy. For a wealthy russian that’s something. 🙂
I hope with this new sponsorship Riis cycling can bounce back to the top.
Too many compliments can’t be enough.
Thx
Great piece. Thanks.
Sharp as a sponsor for the Garmin-Cervelo Team must also be welcomed. Great for the sport that a consumeroriented company like Sharp wants to step into cycling.
Well they’ve been a sponsor of the Rapha-Condor-Sharp squad (british team) for a while now, and they sponsor some of the cycling on tv, so they have obviously had a good experience so far and want to get into the top flight. This can only be a good thing.
большие спасибо! I’ve been enjoying watching him hover around for years, and have been waiting for him to pop up again. I hope he and Riis work well together. He’s a second cook in the kitchen for sure, so we’ll see. A live wire. For anyone interested in the wild west period of Russian business, there’s a pretty wild novel/movie called Generation P (for Pepsi, which penetrated the market and the youth during the Brezhnev era). Here’s trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqe-nNhp0kw.
It’s not really released abroad though the full movie is on YouTube, and if you’re good you can find the subtitles .srt file, put in same folder etc…
Thanks for that! I should see the film. Seems like a good grin og three.
It’s nice to see some more good news for Riis, who seemed to be on the ropes and utterly dejected a few months ago. Now he has a new title sponsor, the best rider in the world on his way back to the team and should be able to fill out his rather weak squad.
Could be the tide turning though it’s a bit tricky to tell utterly dejected from deliriously happy with Riis 😀
All the best to the new project!
A welcome back to Mr Tinkoff. He seems to have his heart in the right place. Hope the team is succesfull for all the right reasons. Interesting piece chef, thanks.
Lets put it this way: Last time he was around cycling was hardly boring! – I think he’ll shake up Riis lol as BR is a ‘forging ahead – wise’ kind of character…
As I’ve said before on this site, I don’t like Riis at all but I do respect him greatly. Every time I think he’s taken so many body blows he’s just about to fall down and die he gets up and lands another knock-out punch. He sails through huge challenges, seemingly unsinkable. And good to see the Tinkoff name back in cycling. Yes some of their riders were ethically questionable but you could say the same about most teams at the time. As others have said, it will be interesting to see the interplay between Tinkov and Riis. Two big personalities.
Great success story!
Gene Panasenko