Description
Hunt the Banker is a memoir of Lebedev's own hair-raising experiences as someone who aspires to show that an 'honest banker' is not an oxymoron. There is the thread of a whodunit as his attempts at constructive and charitable business enterprises are systematically torpedoed by a person or persons unknown.
[An] entertaining and wildly self-indulgent account of his life and career in Russia... a noble effort to save an industry in trouble.
Alexander Lebedev’s new book is a revelatory portrait of power players, from his days in the KGB to multi-million pound deals. [It] lays bare a world in which the grim violence and comic absurdism you might find in Gogol’s short stories coexist... If Hunt the Banker settles a lot of scores, it’s also a good-humoured account of his own foibles and business failings.
Author Alexander Lebedev is a Russian banker, philanthropist and public figure. A member of the KGB’s Foreign Intelligence Service, he worked in the USSR Embassy in London in the 1980s. Since 1992 he has been a businessman, founder and beneficial owner of financial & industrial group National Reserve Corporation, which includes the National Reserve Bank. He has property assets throughout Europe and enterprises in aviation, agriculture, engineering, catering and beyond. He bought The Independent and the Evening Standard newspapers and is a shareholder and investor of investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta in Russia.