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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich taken from the wiki

Born to a Russian Jewish family,[4] Abramovich was raised in his uncles' families, living first in Ukhta, in the Komi Republic, and then in Moscow. He attended simple state schools and was, at best, an average student. Information on his university education is controversial. Some sources suggest that he attended the Ukhta Industrial University, while others point to The Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in Moscow. Both universities deny his attendance. In Abramovich’s official biography it is stated that he graduated from the Moscow State Law Academy in 2001, but rumours still circulate that he dropped out. Some sources claim that this supposed law-degree was completed in just two years whereas most law-education institutions require at least four years in attendance.

Roman Abramovich started his multi-billion-dollar business during his army service where he sold stolen gasoline to some of the commissioned officers of his unit.[5] After a brief stint in the Soviet Army, he married his first wife, Olga. He first worked as a street-trader and then as a mechanic at a local factory.[6] At the peak of perestroika, Abramovich sold imported rubber ducks from his Moscow apartment. Some sources suggest that these ducks were imported illegally, but no evidence of this exists.[7]

A 2,000-ruble wedding present from Olga's parents (about £1,000 or US$2,000 at that time[8]) was invested by Abramovich in smuggling of black market goods or contraband[8] to sell in Moscow in or around December 1987.[9] Abramovich soon doubled, then tripled, the investment, his confidence growing with each success in this smuggling business.[10] Soon he progressed to making plastic toys (including plastic sailors[11]) and started up an automobile parts cooperative. He attended the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow (where he sold retreaded car tires as a sideline[12]), then traded commodities for Runicom, a Swiss trading company.[13]

In 1988, as Perestroika opened up opportunities for entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union, Abramovich got a chance to legitimize his underworld business.[14] He and Olga set up a company making dolls. "It brought success almost immediately," says Olga.[9] Due to his business acumen, within a few years his wealth spread from oil conglomerates to pig farms and he also started investing in other businesses.[15] Abramovich set up and liquidated at least 20 companies during the early 1990s, in sectors as diverse as tire retreading and bodyguard recruitment.[16][17]

From 1992 to 1995, Abramovich founded five companies that conducted resale, produced consumer goods, and acted as intermediaries, eventually specializing in the trading of oil and oil products. However, in 1992, he was arrested and sent to prison[18] in a case of theft of government property: AVEKS-Komi sent a train containing 55 cisterns of diesel fuel, worth 3.8 million roubles, from the Ukhta Oil Refinery; Abramovich met the train in Moscow and resent the shipment to the Kaliningrad military base under a fake agreement, but the fuel arrived in Riga. Abramovich co-operated with the investigation, and the case was closed after the oil production factory was compensated by the diesel's buyer, the Latvian-US company, Chikora International.[19]

In 1995, Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky, an associate of President Boris Yeltsin, acquired the controlling interest in the large oil company Sibneft. The deal was within the controversial loans-for-shares program and each partner paid US$100 million for half of the company, below the stake's stock market value of US$150 million at the time, and rapidly turned it up into billions. The fast-rising value of the company led many observers, in hindsight, to suggest that the real cost of the company should have been in the billions of dollars.[20] Abramovich later admitted in court that he paid huge bribes (in billions) to government officials and obtained protection from gangsters to acquire these and other assets (including aluminium assets during the aluminium wars).[21]

Thus, the main stages of Abramovich's financial career were: January 1989 to May 1991, chairman of the Comfort Co-op (manufacturer of plastic toys); May 1991 to May 1993, director of the ABK small enterprise, Moscow. According to various sources, from 1992 to 1995 Roman Abramovich set up five companies engaged in the production of consumer goods and selling-and-buying. In May 1995, jointly with Boris Berezovsky, he set up the P.K. Trust close joint-stock company. In 1995 and 1996, he established another 10 firms: Mekong close joint-stock company, Centurion-M close joint-stock company, Agrofert limited liability company, Multitrans close joint-stock company, Oilimpex close joint-stock company, Sibreal close joint-stock company, Forneft close joint-stock company, Servet close joint-stock company, Branco close joint-stock company, Vector-A limited liability company, which, again together with Berezovsky, he used to purchase the shares of the Sibneft public company.

this guy is a role model anyone can make it. Lets use this thread to motivate ourselves and start ballin. If youre ballin already show everyone how you get your shine on etc.

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i take credit for this thread

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147268_468x550.jpg

Urwerk

The 201 is the result of three years of research and development by a five-man team at Urwerk. In this innovative timepiece, time is displayed using telescopic minute hands operating through the middle of three orbiting and revolving hour satellites. The new Linear 100 Year Plus Indicator, inspired by the odometer of a car, keeps track of how many years the movement has been in operation. Powered directly from the winding of the crown (as is the oil-change indicator), this linear gauge has no detrimental effect on either the timekeeping precision of the movement or the power reserve. The linear indicator advances every 6 years up to a maximum of 118 years

soon cop

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13689890

China's thirst for luxury is a boom for yacht builders

Sat on a sun-dappled deck of a 60-foot yacht sipping an iced-coffee and smoking a cigarette, Gordon Hui looks pleased with himself.

He has good reason.

Mr Hui, the boss of the Asia operations of UK yacht-builder Sunseeker, is poised to seal a massive deal worth potentially up to 20m pounds ($33m) to sell five yachts - two over a 100 feet (30m) - to a mainland Chinese customer.

"They've done their research. They are just coming to talk delivery times," he says in between meeting prospective customers at the Hong Kong Gold Coast Boat Show.

Mr Hui says the market in China for the deep-hulled, handcrafted luxury yachts that Sunseeker produces in Poole, Dorset has ballooned from "nothing" two years ago.

Since then Sunseeker, which makes 230 boats a year, has sold around 25 yachts to Chinese customers.

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Sonus-faber.jpg

Much of the roughly 700-pound weight of the new 5-foot-7-inch-tall Sonus Faber Flagship loudspeaker (www.sonusfaber.com) rests in the huge vibration conveyors at the cabinet’s top and bottom. The considerable mass and clamshell shape of these anodized aluminum blocks trap and collect the energy generated by audio frequency resonance. A vertical steel rod connecting the blocks transfers these vibrations to a dampening device, which cancels the vibrations. A 4-inch voice coil drives the side-firing 15-inch nano-carbon-fiber-skinned woofer for tight low-end responses down to 18 Hz. Sonus Faber is making only 30 pairs of the speakers, two of which are available from Sumiko Audio (www.sumikoaudio.net) for $200,000, which includes set up and in-room calibration.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZb9Z0b05I

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Sonus-faber.jpg

Much of the roughly 700-pound weight of the new 5-foot-7-inch-tall Sonus Faber Flagship loudspeaker (www.sonusfaber.com) rests in the huge vibration conveyors at the cabinet’s top and bottom. The considerable mass and clamshell shape of these anodized aluminum blocks trap and collect the energy generated by audio frequency resonance. A vertical steel rod connecting the blocks transfers these vibrations to a dampening device, which cancels the vibrations. A 4-inch voice coil drives the side-firing 15-inch nano-carbon-fiber-skinned woofer for tight low-end responses down to 18 Hz. Sonus Faber is making only 30 pairs of the speakers, two of which are available from Sumiko Audio (www.sumikoaudio.net) for $200,000, which includes set up and in-room calibration.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZb9Z0b05I

watched all of it thats f*cked so only the rich can get richer

Get your money up by all means.

But the cleansing of your soul means so much more.

What exactly does this mean i dont think i understand this

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Anyone know or heard of this Charles Gordon guy?

cc.jpg

I had the great pleasure to meet a South London lad who has walked on both sides of the street. Charles Gordon is an inspirational man who has worked hard and smart to achieve the success he now enjoys today.

Charles turned up at our Chelmsford offices in a chauffeur driven Bentley. I could smell the leather from our second floor window! Charles was dressed immaculately and he had good reason to smile.

I enjoyed my time with Charles and found him to be very interesting, intelligent and above all welcoming. He is a down to earth guy who you cannot help but like. We laughed and joked about life before we ran our interview.

Multi-millionaire Charles Gordon has partied hard with P-Diddy and worked harder amassing a fortune through property development, but as a teenager he almost turned instead to a life of crime. Long before the Lamborghinis and Aston Martins came along, he was forced to consider a job at Burger King whilst his peers tried to encourage him to steal car radios just to get by.

The businessman, who made his first million aged just 21 was labelled as unemployable at school and surrounded by the police sirens and gun culture of a run-down South London estate, almost joined a gang to get rich quick or die trying.

Here is what I asked Charles.

What was your childhood like?

My dad’s Jamaican and my mum’s from the Bahamas. How I would summarize it is that it takes extremes. The Jamaican side of me is extreme in one way and the Bahamian side of me is extreme in another way.

I remember when I was younger coming home one day on the bus with my mum and we were having a conversation and I asked my mum, “Which half of me is Bahamian and which half of me is Jamaican”? She said to me “you see the ignorance side of you that loses its temper, that gets angry, that breaks things and wants to beat a person up when they upset you, that’s the Jamaican half. You see the diplomatic side, the negotiator, want to reason it out and needs to understand everything, that’s your Bahamian side of you”.

What was your first opportunity, your first taste that set you on your road?

I knew a bit about property and my dad was in the property industry at the time. But we didn’t get on, we were like two bulls in a pen and it wasn’t going to happen. I’d only ever had one job in my life and that’s was in a sports shop selling trainers, but I was the best trainer salesman there. I got sacked from there about three times but they had to keep bringing me back because I was the best salesman in the store.

I remember there was a guy who at time had a Porsche 944 and I asked him how he got it. He answered me saying that he was in property and I asked him how it worked. He basically said that what you need to do is buy houses and sell them on and I looked at it and thought that it can’t be too complicated! He advised me that I needed to look into buying property that is cheaper than it is actually worth.

At the time I found a property for £43,000 but it was valued for £55,000 and then you got to find a buyer. I found a friend of mine, that at the time the mortgages were 95%. So what I basically did was, found a buyer for the property, went back to them a week later and said I’ve got a property. I then went to an estate agent and said I need something that someone wants to buy quickly as they were in a hurry so they found me a property.

I negotiated the deal and went back to this guy and said that I’ve this property available for £55,000, I’ve got a buyer and they are ready to go. He then went away, did the rest of the deal with solicitors.

That deal made about £10,000 and he paid me £1,600 commission. I then used that £1,600 to open up a letting agency. That £1,600 got me the signs, desks and chairs. It was rough and I was there for a year and a half.

At that time letting agencies were roughly charging £1,000 to rent properties. We undercut everyone on fees. £200 was nothing to other agencies, but to me it was big money. We worked on providing an excellent service and we built up a client base offering them fees they could not refuse. As a direct result, we monopolized the market.

Is it true you made your first £1 million before you were 21 years old, is there any truth in that?

I started in the property industry when I was 19 years old. I was negotiating with the contractors and had no money to pay for the solicitors. When I called the solicitors I used to say I was a trainee solicitor working for Charles Gordon Esquire but I managed to negotiate the lease myself.

The way I saw it was I had nothing to lose and if it went wrong what were they going to do, take away the lease? I didn’t really care, I just wanted to get in there and make it work. When I was negotiating with the agents, I asked what we can get away with and I ended up getting a good deal, I got 6 months rent free and negotiated a 5 year lease.

The way I saw it was I had 6 months to make it work and make some money, if it didn’t work I would just pack it in. It was a case of taking that leap of faith and it worked out alright.

What has been the biggest challenge you have had to face?

Business is glorified gambling. There was a particular situation I remember really clearly where we were dealing in management property and we were turning over a lot of money which necessarily wasn’t our money. A family member came to me and wanted to borrow some money, they needed £100,000 to make a deal. The deal was giving them the £100,000 on Thursday and I would get it back on Tuesday.

Come Tuesday phone calls weren’t getting answered etc and the problem was the £100,000 wasn’t my money. I still had £50,000 that I needed to pay out which I didn’t have! I then worked all hours to earn the £50,000 back and pay everyone. I wasn’t going to give up. It only made me stronger and wiser. I then made a rule of thumb, don’t lend people money.

What does your business interest consist of now?

The basic businesses for me is property, we have quite an extensive property portfolio now, built up over the years. What we do is buy a 5 bedroom house, convert it into flats and rent it all out.

What this did for us is it created an extensive portfolio. I still have the estate agents, which has about 15-20 people working in there now. The overall objective is we have the estate agency side which keeps all the property rented, as well as managing other people’s property. We have a management section and a letting section.

I’ve been in the music industry for about 6 years now. The record label is separate and is called Genetic; we are building it up from the grass roots. We currently have four bands on the record label, which we are working on and are looking to bring out this year.

What are the three things that have contributed to your success?

I can sum it up, I don’t do failure, and I’m not having it, not for a second. My take on life is if it can be done, I can do it and I’m not going to stop until I get it done. In life it’s not that people don’t have the ability to do it, its just they give up. That’s where I’m different and I don’t stop till I win.

What do you do with something that isn’t making money but you’re getting it to a stage where you believe its going to work?

90% of the population in the world is negative. That 90% don’t believe they can do it, but that 10% believe they can and that 10% are the people that are successful.

People will tell you that it won’t work. When it comes down to a business of any description, there is a point where you have to draw a line where you have to say, ‘Well is it working for me or isn’t it working for me and that to me is a learning curve. What I would look at now is simply this - what is my end goal and what are my objectives? Forget what everyone else says, they don’t get it. What you have to do is look at your market and what you have to do.

Tell me about your book ‘The Secret of Empowerment’...

The objective behind the book is that I frequently get asked questions on how I do it, etc and I don’t have the time to answer all the questions. So I wanted to write it all down so they’ve got a rough guide of the principles I used that made me successful. Basic things that is basic to all people.

What would your advice be in starting up a business?

You have to believe. Once you believe, you can do it. As soon as you lose that belief in what you can and cannot do, your team and the people around you lose that belief as well. The key for everything is belief and you have to go at everything whole heartedly. Research, make sure there’s substance and make sure there’s a solid venture in your proposition.

What would be your ultimate end game?

I honestly haven’t thought about it. My overall objective is to win. In short term, the legacy will be left in victory and if anyone asked how or what I did it will be ‘He smashed it’.

Great interview Charles. From all the team at Raw Business we wish you every continued success with your entrepreneurial journey.

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Very good read and motivated me in a way, no more wasting cash on stupidness.. i got a savings account which £150 of my weekly wage goes into but my only bills are the £50 a week i choose to give to my mum for living at home & petrol money... so £150 isnt' good enough..time to up it to £250 leaving me enough money to get my through the next week & throw a few smart bets down on the weekend.

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