Russian Alexander Gerko, a British national, is the fastest-rising personality on Bloomberg's list of billionaires. Her secret from him? Mathematical models that thrive in times of market turmoil. About €6 billion: This is the estimated fortune of this former Deutsche Bank trader, just 43, who founded London-based trading company XTX Markets seven years ago and still owns three-quarters of the shares.
XTX is one of the UK's fastest growing companies. Every day, he trades about $300 billion worth of currencies, stocks, commodities, and bonds; a figure that doubled in the last two years. Today, it is one of the largest liquidity providers in the markets with offices in London, New York, Paris, Singapore, Mumbai and Yerevan (Armenia), Bloomberg reports.
With an 18% market share in European stock trading and 13% in currency trading, the company employs 180 people and works for clients such as banks and hedge funds, but also for itself. XTX is a "quantum" trader. All operations are performed on the basis of mathematical and artificial intelligence models that are based on trillions of data. Its employees are not traders, but mathematicians, data scientists, and engineers.
Alex Gerko grew up in a poor suburb of Moscow. Very soon his aptitude for mathematics was noted. He participated in national math competitions and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Moscow University. Since 2020, Gerko has received more than 2 billion pounds (about 2.3 billion euros) in dividends. This money goes partially to charity.
Thus, Gerko founded an organization that promotes math lessons for poor families. He also makes generous donations to math schools. Last Monday, the University of Oxford announced that Gerko and his wife Elena, an economist at the Bank of England, would sponsor the Maryam Mirzakhani scholarship, in honor of the Iranian mathematician, the first woman to win the Fields Medal.
Besides math, Gerko is also passionate about science fiction and space travel. The XTX headquarters houses a replica of the Apollo XI moon landing capsule. Cylon robots from the Battlestar Galactica series stand guard. As for the conflict between his former homeland and Ukraine, he has already tweeted about Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: "Nuremberg is waiting for you," referring to the trial of top Nazi officials after World War II.
The billionaire has also positioned himself to push for ten times tougher sanctions against Moscow, while helping Ukrainian refugee students. Now, Gerko is targeting growth in the United States. However, he hardly follows the practices of US brokers who resell their clients' orders to market makers, which is prohibited in Europe.
