俄罗斯钢铁大亨莫尔达索夫积极投资美国

    这是我首次与一位俄罗斯亿万富翁会面。地点是在纽约喜来登酒店（Sheraton New York Hotel）一间毫无特色的会议室，在由两排会议室组成的一个长走廊的尽头。俄罗斯钢铁富豪、谢韦尔钢铁公司（Severstal）（2011年收入为150亿美元）的首席执行官阿列克谢•莫尔达索夫正在该酒店出席一个钢铁行业会议，他也是俄罗斯在美国的最大投资者之一。莫尔达索夫的公关人员提醒我说，他与其他惹人注目的俄罗斯行业寡头截然相反。他不收藏游艇，也不买美国棒球队，他支持的是家乡切列波韦茨当地的一支曲棍球队，他的父母曾在切列波韦茨的一家大型钢铁厂工作，如今该厂已被谢韦尔钢铁公司纳入旗下。

    莫尔达索夫的助手说，在他难得不提到数字、战略或业务时，也会展现出另一种激情，即兴吟诵几句烂熟于胸的俄罗斯诗歌。

    莫尔达索夫出现时身穿蓝色西服套装，打着一条松散的蓝色领带，用有力的握手来迎接我。他说着流利但有浓重口音的英语，这是他在英国诺森比亚大学（Northumbria University）读商科时学到的。46岁的莫尔达索夫身材修长，一头棕发干净利落，看起来很年轻。事实上他从低级财务经理起步，到1996年30岁时就已掌管谢韦尔钢铁，通过收购钢铁、采矿和煤炭公司构建起了一个集团企业。据报道，他的个人净资产值已超过180亿美元。

    2004年，莫尔达索夫成为率先在美国投资的俄罗斯大公司之一：谢韦尔钢铁收购了位于密西根州迪尔伯恩、具有传奇历史的Rouge钢铁厂。“当时美国钢铁厂的状况还不如经过技改的俄罗斯钢铁厂。”莫尔达索夫说，“许多技术已有150年的历史。这些钢铁厂存在投资不足的问题已有很多年。”另外，和高炉年久失修一样严重的问题还有工人士气低落。“人们都以为Rouge会破产，因此有很多焦虑情绪。企业文化甚至比俄罗斯还糟。同时，工作条例也问题多多。”

    It was my first encounter with a Russian billionaire. The setting was a nondescript meeting room, down a long, bland hallway of meeting rooms, at the Sheraton New York Hotel, where Alexey Mordashov was attending a steel industry conference. His press people had cautioned that Mordashov, Russia's leading steel magnate as chief of Severstal (2011 revenues: $15 billion) and one of his nation's biggest investors in the U.S., is the antithesis of the flamboyant Russian oligarch. He eschews collecting yachts or U.S. basketball franchises, and instead supports the local hockey team in his hometown of Cherepovets, where his parents labored in the giant steel mill Severstal now owns.

    On an infrequent break from talking numbers, strategy and business, his lieutenants say, Mordashov displays another passion by breaking into a recital of the Russian poems he knows by heart.

    Mordashov, attired in a blue suit and loosely-knotted blue tie, greets me with a crunching handshake worthy of a welder. He speaks fluent if heavily accented English learned as a business student at Northumbria University in Britain. At 46, Mordashov is trim and youthful-looking with neatly-cropped brown hair. Indeed, after starting as a low-level finance manager, he rose to head Severstal in 1996 at age 30, building a conglomerate by purchasing steel, mining and coal companies. His net worth reportedly exceeds $18 billion.

    Mordashov became the one of the first major Russian investors in the U.S. when Severstal purchased the legendary Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2004. "Steel plants in the U.S. were in worse shape than the Russian plants we renovated," says Mordashov. "A lot of the technology was 150 years old. They'd suffered from under-investment for many years." Worker morale, he adds, was as big a problem as decaying furnaces. "People were expecting Rouge to go bankrupt, so there was a lot of anxiety. The corporate culture problem was even worse than in Russia. And at the same time, the work rules were more difficult."