Access Industries — BrandWiki

Access Industries

Overview

Access Industries, Inc.

type	Private
foundation	1986
founder	Len Blavatnik
location city	New York City, United States London, England
key people	Len Blavatnik
industry	Conglomerate
products	Natural resources Chemicals Media Telecommunications Venture capital Real estate Film production Television production Music
owner	Len Blavatnik
subsid	Warner Music Group (72%) Access Entertainment DAZN Group

Access Industries, Inc. is a United States–based[1] privately held multinational investment company which was founded in 1986 by businessman Leonard "Len" Blavatnik. Access Industries' focus is in seven sectors:[2] biotechnology, entertainment, external funds, global media, strategic equity, technology ventures, and real estate. The group invests in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Latin America. It is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Mill Valley, California.[3]

Access Industries has stakes in companies including Warner Music Group, LyondellBasell, DAZN,[4] Calpine Corporation,[5] A24,[6]

History

Len Blavatnik founded Access Industries in 1986 as an investment company.[8] He attended Harvard Business School while running the company on the side,[9] 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.[10] Half of TNK was sold to BP to form TNK-BP in 2003,[9] in what was the largest-ever foreign investment in a Russian company.[11] 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.[10]

Access Industries purchased a large stake in the fashion label Tory Burch in 2004.[12]

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."[13] LyondellBasell Industries was the third largest chemical manufacturer in the US as of 2023.[14]

In 2006, Access Industries took an estimated 70% stake in Top Up TV, a pay TV service in the United Kingdom[15] which sold its subscriber business to Sky in 2013.[16] In 2007, Access Industries purchased a majority stake in the sports media company Perform Group.[15] Also that year, Access became an owner in Acision, a software company focused on messaging systems.[17] Acision was acquired by Comverse in 2015.[18] As of 2010, Access retained ownership in companies such as Icon Film Distribution UK,[15] Perform Group, Top Up TV, Amedia,

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.[23] After investing in Facebook before its IPO, Access exited its Facebook holdings in late 2015.[24]

Since 2016, Access has been the majority owner of online sport-streaming service DAZN, and Deezer, the French music streaming service.[25] In 2018, Access, alongside a consortium of investors, acquired Calpine Corporation for $5.6 billion.[26] In 2018, Access bought the Theatre Royal Haymarket, the third oldest theatre in Britain.[27]

In the second half of 2022, Access sold its stake in UC Rusal, thereby divesting of its last major asset in Russia.[28]

Holdings

Natural resources and chemicals

Among Access Industries' current holdings are businesses[3] in oil, petrochemicals, power generation,[29] aluminum[10] and biotechnology.[30] Access helped form the large aluminum producer SUAL 1996 with a combination of mergers and acquisitions.[10] In 2007, SUAL merged with RUSAL and the alumina business of Glencore International AG[31] to form UC RUSAL.[10] RUSAL raised $2.24 billion in a 2010 IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange,[32] and in 2017 it was the world's largest aluminum producer.[10] Access Industries is no longer a shareholder in UC Rusal, having fully divested of its shares in the company in the second half of 2022. This represented the last of its major assets in Russia.[28]

In 2005 Access acquired Basell Polyolefins, a Dutch company[33] specializing in polyolefins.[34] On December 20, 2007, Basell acquired the commodity chemicals company Lyondell[33] for approximately $20 billion.[34][33] The resulting company, LyondellBasell Industries,[34] was impacted by the 2008 financial crisis,[34] and in 2009, the US operations of LyondellBasell Industries filed for bankruptcy. With financing in part from Access Industries,

Since 2013, Access Industries has owned Clal Industries Ltd. (CII), an Israeli industrial investment group.[38][30] Among CII's main investments are Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, Hadera Paper, Golf & Co., Clal Biotechnology,[30] and the logistics group Taavura.[39] Also since 2013, Access has owned a significant interest in EP Energy, a North American oil and natural gas producer with a portfolio of fields in the United States and Brazil.[40] On August 18, 2017, Access Industries and a consortium of investors agreed to acquire the energy company Calpine Corporation for $5.6 billion.[29]

Media and telecommunications

Access Industries previously held stakes in a number of companies in the media and telecommunications industries[3] including Ice (Norway),[41] RGE Group (Israel), Channel 10 (Israel),[38] Noga Communications and the Sports Channel (Israel).[42] Access previously owned a majority[43] stake in Amedia, a large Russian film and TV studio[44] known for shows such as Poor Nastya.

Technology

In 2015, Access Industries launched Access Technology Ventures, a venture and growth technology investment arm focused on pre-IPO "unicorns".[24] As of 2017, it had investments in companies including Snapchat, Square, Yelp, Alibaba, Rocket Internet,[24] Deezer,[62] Gett,[63] Spotify

Real estate

Access owns a portfolio of hotels and other commercial and residential properties in the United States, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean, including:[3][67]

Faena Group (Buenos Aires, Argentina[68] and Miami Beach, Florida)
Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat (French Riviera, France)[69]
Grand Peaks (Denver, Colorado)[67]