Anton Cherepennikov, the man who founded “X Holding,” has passed away
Anton Cherepennikov, a businessman and the creator of the IT company group “X Holding,” died at the age of 40. RBC cited the organization in its report on this information. An apparent heart arrest was the first cause of death.
The Director of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media, Maksut Shadaev, announced the businessman’s passing. He sent his sympathies to Cherepennikov’s friends and family. The minister said that “X Holding” grew to be one of the nation’s biggest technological firms under the entrepreneur’s direction. “Anton worked on the development of base stations, low-orbit satellite broadband satellites, and a special-scale manufacture of Russian servers, data storage systems, and tablets. The sector expanded quickly as a result of Anton’s active role and the success of his businesses. For all of us, his leaving is a great loss, Shadaev said in a statement shared on the ministry’s Telegram account.
The Ministry of Digital Development will help the business and its employees, he continued.
In 1983, Cherepennikov was born in Moscow. After earning his degree in civil engineering from Moscow State University, he established the business “Osnova Lab.” The businessman bought “Malvin Systems” in 2015 and combined the firms into “Citadel” Group. In the same year, Cherepennikov founded the esports holding firm ESforce based on the Virtus.pro team along with Alexander Kokhanovsky, the creator of the esports club Natus Vincere. He started the “Forpost” group of IT businesses in 2016 and “Kryptonit” LLC in March 2018. Nine months later, Cherepennikov established “X Holding,” a grouping of 23 IT businesses that included “Citadel,” the systems integrator “Forpost,” and the creator of cybersecurity products “Kryptonit.”
The holding joined “USM Telecom,” which is under the leadership of tycoon Alisher Usmanov, in September 2020. Cherepennikov repurchased the business in March 2022 and departed the USM organization. Publicly accessible sources estimate that “X Holding’s” revenue for 2022 was 91 billion rubles. The billionaire also became a member of “MegaFon’s” board of directors in 2020.
In an interview with “Vedomosti” in March 2019, Cherepennikov stated that “X Holding” had revenue comparable to that of Mail.ru Group, although he had aspirations to outperform “Yandex.” He has taken control of more than 20 different IT businesses since 2015, capturing more than half of the market, and is now the biggest manufacturer of systems for adhering to the “Yarovaya law.” Additionally, he founded his own IT integrator and a prospective “commercial research institute” – a collaborative research and production enterprise with “Rostec.”
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