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The story
Founded by Len Blavatnik in 1986.1
Len Blavatnik founded Access Industries in 1986 as an investment company. He attended Harvard Business School while running the company on the side, graduating with an MBA in 1989.
Among its early investments, Access Industries helped form the large aluminum producer SUAL in 1996, which later became part of UC RUSAL. In 1997, Access acquired a 40% stake in the Russian oil company TNK. Half of TNK was sold to BP to form TNK-BP in 2003, in what was the largest-ever foreign investment in a Russian company. In 2013, Rosneft acquired TNK-BP for $55 billion, with Access Industries selling its stake and Blavatnik collecting US$7 billion for his share of the oil venture.
Access Industries purchased a large stake in the fashion label Tory Burch in 2004.
In 2005, Access acquired Basell Polyolefins which, after Basell's acquisition of Lyondell in 2007, became LyondellBasell Industries. The transaction was described by Forbes as "the greatest private equity deal of all time." LyondellBasell Industries was the third largest chemical manufacturer in the US as of 2023.
In 2006, Access Industries took an estimated 70% stake in Top Up TV, a pay TV service in the United Kingdom which sold its subscriber business to Sky in 2013. In 2007, Access Industries purchased a majority stake in the sports media company Perform Group. Also that year, Access became an owner in Acision, a software company focused on messaging systems. Acision was acquired by Comverse in 2015. As of 2010, Access retained ownership in companies such as Icon Film Distribution UK, Perform Group, Top Up TV, Amedia, RGE Group, and Warner Music Group (WMG). On July 20, 2011, Access acquired Warner Music Group for US$3.3 billion. WMG listed on the Nasdaq in 2020.
In May 2016, Access Industries launched Access Entertainment, a division headed up by former BBC Television boss Danny Cohen which specialises in investing in the entertainment media sector. After investing in Facebook before its IPO, Access exited its Facebook holdings in late 2015.
Since 2016, Access has been the majority owner of online sport-streaming service DAZN, and Deezer, the French music streaming service. In 2018, Access, alongside a consortium of investors, acquired Calpine Corporation for $5.6 billion. In 2018, Access bought the Theatre Royal Haymarket, the third oldest theatre in Britain.
In the second half of 2022, Access sold its stake in UC Rusal, thereby divesting of its last major asset in Russia.
From Wikipedia’s article on Access Industries, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4