An honest businessman never stands still. The market is constantly changing, and those who simply cannot respond to the challenges of our time quickly fade into the background. Conversely, those who can rein in time and successfully adapt to changes result in becoming true economic heroes.
Naked Kings
In the history of our country, there has been a string of businessmen whose meteoric rise ended with an equally rapid fall. Typically, their success was based on a single decision rather than managerial and business talent. Many examples can be recalled because quite often, such people after their financial defeat, try to remain in the information field. By inertia for years, they as experts are attracted to the media.
Evgeny Chichvarkin made his fortune using gray customs schemes, which allowed him to work with fabulous profits. However, as soon as the system was revealed, it was quickly exposed; the naked king could not work in more competitive conditions. So far, the founder of Euroset has not even been able to operate a wine boutique competently.
Sergey Polonsky, the former owner and head of the Mirax Group, became widely known for a provocative phrase that insulted everyone who had not earned a billion in their life. As it turned out, however, he was able to work only in the economy’s growth on the gray real estate schemes. As soon as this tool was taken away from him, the businessman quickly lost all his claims to greatness.
There is another type of businessman who could not curb the changes. These people tried to occupy a new niche, but could not accept their own challenges. There are many of them in the show business; Grigory Leps, Morgenstern, and Timati all tried to enter the catering business, Mikhail Galustyan opened his own film studio, and Kharlamov opened a clothing line. The result was predictably pitiable: without a real entrepreneurial streak, they could not manage their finances.
At the same time, there are also those in Russia whose names don’t just open doors to new fields of activity but break down walls. One of the most striking examples is the co-owner of Euroinvest, Andrey Berezin, who started as a real estate developer and is now successfully implemented within the industry. He has also expanded into venture investment and is even taking his first steps in implementing educational projects.
Developer
Andrey Berezin is undoubtedly a successful businessman. His regular appearance on the Russian Forbes list is the most apparent evidence of this. Unlike most, he has always strived to earn his reputation as a responsible, far-sighted entrepreneur while making money.
Euroinvest’s first projects can hardly be called revolutionary. Firstly, the company earned its financial base on retail, mainly focused on foreign goods. Only after that did the holding enter the development sphere, but it immediately distinguished itself by its thorough approach to selecting the projects to be implemented.
While an epidemic of point development was raging in the country, Euroinvest immediately set its sights on block development. Today, this approach is the preferred norm, but until recently, developers preferred not to think about the further development of their residential complexes.
The projects themselves were consistently high quality. By the beginning of the 2010s, Euroinvest ideas were widely presented at international and Russian exhibitions and received prestigious prizes and awards. The company became a permanent member of the largest real estate exhibition in Europe, Expo Real, and MIPIM, one of the largest thematic areas of the world.
It is noteworthy that Euroinvest brought residential development projects and promising ideas for public spaces, shopping, and entertainment centers. In particular, the company had the idea to put in order the legendary sanatorium Sestroretsky kurort, the concept of a shopping and entertainment center in Hollywood that is to be opened in 2023 in the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg was first introduced in Canada.
Work on such sites has not gone unnoticed. Euroinvest is an advanced company positioned in the development field. The company’s latest projects are deeply integrated with the latest intelligent systems and offer public spaces, transformable open spaces for remote workers, and well-designed social infrastructure.
The 3iD complex embodies all of these ideas. Its future tenants will be able to control all the utility systems of their apartments, run intelligent appliances, and receive information about what is going on at home at any time with their smartphones. At the same time, the complex is designed with open public spaces and educational infrastructure.
The residential complexes become truly residential. They are not designed to become sleeping places for their owners but hobby clubs, where it is pleasant and valuable for the whole family to spend their free time. Such a project is unique for the country, and it reflects all the accumulated years of experience of Euroinvest.
Industrialist
At the same time, it is evident that the peak growth of the construction market has long been left behind. There is not a single “unicorn company” in Russia whose success in recent years has been explicitly linked to the construction market. Only the most experienced companies are left, which can develop and provide results in any conditions, but it will never be enough for an honest businessman who always needs dynamic growth. This is why Andrey Berezin started to diversify his assets long ago, and his choice was not the most obvious one: long-term (multibillion-dollar) investments into a high-tech industry.
The first purchase was Svetlana PJSC, a legendary industrial holding with more than a century of history. Once a manufacturer of light bulbs, it is now a diversified company that, thanks to investments from Euroinvest, has strengthened its position in the market of vacuum and microelectronic products, now having confidently entered the field of medicine.
Andrey Berezin systematically put the company in order. He had his sales system streamlined (during his first year in charge, sales had more than doubled), and non-core assets were sold at a profit (this allowed increasing the net profit by hundreds of millions a year). The first investment program was realized (one of the first private industrial clusters in Russia was created), and the second one was launched. Now with the hands of the subsidiary company Euro Venture, Andrey Berezin supports and brings to market the most promising inventions of Svetlana specialists.
Svetlana was followed by two more purchases: the Rigel and Recond plants. Both enterprises need exact jewel-like faceting as their predecessor, and they are shards of Soviet glory that continue to move forward thanks to enthusiasts and highly accumulated scientific potential.
“Rigel has already received its first impetus for development; Russian industrial giant Almaz-Antey is now purchasing its batteries. Strictly following the successful renovation model, the plant completed its first modernization program and began the second, allowing it to increase battery production almost threefold. In the same way, non-core assets, which a highly specialized defense enterprise traditionally dragged along, were discarded and successfully sold.“
Now the plant has three main areas of work, each of which has highly high prospects. First, there are traction batteries for Almaz-Antey equipment, a reliable source of income for many years to come. The second direction can already be viewed as promising; Rigel has developments that allow it to produce batteries for domestic smartphones and tablets. A few years ago, such prospects could be called vague, but today such a U-turn would not cause any surprise. The third and final direction is the state defense order, including those related to advanced military submarine equipment.
“Recond, acquired by Euroinvest in 2022, has just entered this development path. So far, only the first stage of the plant’s modernization has been announced: the first 500 million rubles of investments have been told, half of which are already in the form of new equipment at the old plant. Recond specializes in semiconductor production, and in this part, we do not even have to invent new niches. The semiconductor market in the world grew by 20% last year alone and continues to grow at the same high rate. Therefore, you need robust and competitive products, and demand will find the product itself.”
New Niches
The experience of working with the scientific-industrial sector has opened up entirely new perspectives for Andrey Berezin. The considerable scientific potential of the enterprises’ employees makes it possible to choose the best ideas, support their improvement, and bring them to the market. When efficient, the businessman kills several birds with one stone: providing young scientists with unprecedented conditions for personal growth, motivating employees to search for new solutions, and receiving a constant flow of new ideas for developing his business.
Euroinvest’s Euro Venture division performs this task. The company selects the best developments from the whole available pool and then accompanies the authors of innovative hardware systems to market and industrial production. The project portfolio is not very wide, but its composition is more than respectable.
Currently, the flagship project is a robotic complex for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. In two years, the prototype has been brought to the stage of clinical testing, and this year it will be installed in the Petrov Oncology Center. Petrov Cancer Center. This tool allows simultaneous surgery to remove a tumor, conduct radiation therapy, and provide complete visual control of the process for the attending physician. Experts have already assessed the high potential of the device; they have already decided to prepare it for commercial production after certification.
In addition, Euro Venture supported the development of a microwave unit for heating and repairing asphalt concrete pavements. The idea behind the team is that it allows you to heat the entire thickness of the asphalt evenly, thus providing a higher-quality repair. Our roads and climate are always relevant, especially when considering the alternatives to the long-outdated gas and inductive burners.
Another know-how is the ice thickness meter, which uses the principle of ultrashort pulse radiolocation in its work. Essentially, it registers the change in wave frequency as it hits the water once passing through a mass of ice; it analyzes the data promptly and gives an accurate result. Such devices are indispensable for work in Arctic conditions, and domestic raw material giants are already interested in the development.
Each of these projects can become a unicorn capable of multiplying production and profits for several years, and in all cases, they appeared due to Andrei Berezin’s long-term investment strategy.
Education
That is why the new stage of Euroinvest’s development seems entirely organic. Having fully understood all the problems of the national scientific and industrial complex and personally worked with young specialists on their promising developments, Andrey Berezin decided to take up the action of education independently.
Berezin remarked on the commitment to plunging into the science industry: “Domestic science and education are in deep crisis. The level of personnel and education in the country is falling. The state has to solve this problem quickly; otherwise, it will be left without hands and brains. And business must help by investing in bright minds and supporting them with scholarships and grants. We are already doing it: starting this year, we launch a personal scholarship named after cosmonaut Georgy Grechko at Voenmech.”
He started with a scholarship, but continued his systematic work in education, announcing the construction of a new academy for gifted children in St. Petersburg. The new educational institution will work in close contact with the holding enterprises, which suggests programs and professional orientation courses will allow you to create new professionals literally from the school bench.
Even Euroinvest’s residential complexes have been supplemented with educational clubs. It has never been the case that a developer was concerned with its residents’ personal and professional growth; it is a revolutionary approach and challenging to find analogs in Russia and the world.
Andrey Berezin has reached an absolutely unique businessman level. First, he went through the stage of mastering new niches. Then, he went through the development phase to perfect the example of the best European standards. Finally, he managed to find and modernize the most promising shards of Soviet science and industry; he set up instruments of point support for good developments. Now, he creates what is called an ecosystem in the modern world. The structures of Euroinvest now offer a complete cycle of life services: education, work, prospects, and comfortable housing.
It is possible that the talent of the businessman, together with his personal and professional experience, will open up many more niches in the industry. If we follow the existing logic, at the next stage, Andrey Berezin will be able to build a whole city with all the necessary social and industrial infrastructure for the successful development of people. It is even possible that he will be able to do it nationally if he can scale his ideas through state programs, principles, and priorities. Moreover, the reputation that he has built for himself over the years will allow any, even large-scale ambitions to be realized.
Frontiers of Euroinvest by Andrey Berezin:
- Search, creation, structuring, and sale of real estate
- Development of territories for the further erection of multi-story residential buildings
- Creation of territory development projects and preparation of engineering infrastructure for cottages, warehouses, and industrial premises
- Development of telecommunications in Moscow and St. Petersburg
- Development of medical equipment manufacturing
- Support for projects related to the extraction of minerals
- Financing of Russian and foreign exploration projects
