- About 210,000 Russians visited the United Arab Emirates, which is 15% more than in 2020, and the demand for resident visas (residence permit ) – by 80%
- In connection with the latest considerations on the ban on cryptocurrencies in Russia, what should we be afraid of, what steps should be taken and what awaits cryptocurrencies in our country?
- Share your plans for 2022.
In the conditions of an unstable global and Russian economy, stock markets, and, at the same time, the breakthrough development of the cryptocurrency segment, many investors and entrepreneurs cannot decide on the choice of investing. We talked about promising areas for investment, personal professional achievements, and anti-crisis policy with Nikolai Mozhenkov, an entrepreneur, investor, analyst, creator, and president of the Conclave private business club.
Nikolai, let’s start with the start of your career. Tell us in what year and how did you start your career path. Did you immediately catch this top of the wave, or were there some falls?
- My career began on November 15, 2008 in the investment company Peter Trust , I headed the Moscow office. My employment took place immediately after returning from China, where I finished writing my thesis in the direction of “Finance and Banking”, and it happened just at the beginning of the crisis. Devaluation, a sharp collapse of the stock markets at first created difficulties in attracting capital to the company, as many investors lost their savings in the Russian stock markets. But I managed to show good results and attract more than 100 million rubles of investments.
Two years later, I was invited to the Porsche Center Taganka dealership as a sales director, and I managed to bring the dealership to the first place in this indicator. This result was an incentive for me to start my own startups: “Karman” – an aggregator for car services, Artlife – an augmented reality project, in 2015 to establish a hedge fund A & M Capital Investment and in 2017 – A & M Crypto crypto fund (algorithmic bots). The implementation of some startups subsequently had to be abandoned due to the unwillingness of the Russians to pay for such services, so they invested all their time and energy in the last two funds.
14 years in business, what projects are you really proud to talk about. What do you think worked and what didn’t?
Each startup, project, work had its own achievements. For example, as the director of the Moscow representative office of the investment company Peter Trust, I managed to attract new investors with investments of a million dollars or more, which was a record. Porsche Center Taganka was able to take the first place among Russian car dealerships in terms of the number of cars sold, sports models, Porsche Panamera, the purchase of additional equipment and extended warranties, insurance, and lending services. Which was also a unique result for this dealership. A&M Capital Investment in 2018 entered the TOP-10 of the world’s best funds according to Interactive Brokers- an American brokerage company, a global player in the financial market with offices in more than 10 countries, and access to trading in 125 markets in more than 30 countries. For crypto fund A&M Crypto, the best result was the timely withdrawal of bitcoins at a price of $19,000 just before its value collapsed at the end of 2017. But in any business there are only victories, of course, there were difficulties. Especially in the corona crisis year. At the very beginning of the pandemic, it was decided to close the A&M Capital Investment fund and return all investments to investors, as a significant drop in the face value of money was expected and it was not expected that an additional amount of money would be issued to maintain the stability of the economy.
At that moment, we implemented all possible anti-crisis measures, up to the reduction of staff, which helped to quickly resume the work of the fund and start new projects to provide services for obtaining visas, international passports, business invitations and other products necessary for moving between countries. As the founder of the fund, he was invited to Dubai, where he became a partner in the project of the Premium Dubai concierge service – an actively developing direction in the service sector, a popular service among Russian entrepreneurs and tourists, especially during unstable epidemiological conditions that led to the closure of borders with Europe. Thus, the difficulties led to the opening of new directions in business and allowed to achieve new outstanding results.
Russian business in the UAE. How are things with our businessmen in the Arab countries? Tell us about your partnership with Premium Dubai.
- A lot of Russian businessmen in 2022 pay close attention to this country: tourism is growing – in 2021, about 210,000 Russians visited the United Arab Emirates, which is 15% more than in 2020, and the demand for resident visas (residence permit ) – by 80% . The advantages of the country are a pleasant climate, especially during the calendar winter, a simplified system for obtaining an ID card, the development of the cryptocurrency market, a growing economy and a favorable location. From Dubai, for example, you can get to both European and Asian countries equally quickly, so many entrepreneurs make a choice in favor of this one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas. In this regard, the Premium Dubai concierge service project is now in demand more than ever.
- You are the president of the private club Conclave, where did the idea to create your own business club come from, tell us more about its mission, benefits, how can you join the business community?
- The idea of creating the Conclave and Conclave Premium club arose in 2016 together with friends and acquaintances with whom we communicated and traveled together. It was initially implemented in the form of a regular chat in messengers, over time it turned out that most of the familiar entrepreneurs and businessmen have requests to solve business problems, so it was decided to found Conclave Premium in 2021, where a more serious and solid approach to interacting with customers, and leave the Conclave as a friendly group. In 2022, there is a plan to create Conclave Leader’s and provide not only business support, but also jointly implement new projects and achieve high goals, organize business breakfasts, forums, and travel. Closed Conclave clubs help each participant not only solve professional issues, but also to be in a circle of friends and like-minded people. This is the dream of any person, so each of our meetings is extremely important for me and I always look forward to it.
- Let’s talk about the A&M Crypto project. In connection with the latest considerations on the ban on cryptocurrencies in Russia, what should we be afraid of, what steps should be taken and what awaits cryptocurrencies in our country?
- In connection with the latest information about the ban on cryptocurrency in Russia, it is necessary to wait for new laws that will clearly spell out the restrictions. Most likely, it will not be forbidden to own cryptocurrency, while foreign platforms will be available for all operations. Judging by the actions of some Russian companies with state participation, the crypt will not be completely outlawed, since now they are acquiring mining equipment. Therefore, most likely, this initiative of the Central Bank is temporary and a direct ban should not be expected, only additional regulation of the acquisition, possession and spending of digital money. Now the A&M Crypto fund is mainly engaged in investing in Pre-ICO (pre-IDO) – the sale of tokens even before the start of the official ICO, before they enter the general exchange. To do this, we invest in strategic and private (private around) projects, which we check through our Russian and international partners, and help them successfully list on partner exchanges. Algorithmic trading of digital funds is still in stagnation and the main focus is on checking the profitability of new NFT projects, the gaming segment, augmented virtual reality, the ability to enter them in advance, before they appear on the general exchange, at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and funds clients. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. which we check through our Russian and international partners, and help them successfully list on partner exchanges. Algorithmic trading of digital funds is still in stagnation and the main focus is on checking the profitability of new NFT projects, the gaming segment, augmented virtual reality, the ability to enter them in advance, before they appear on the general exchange, at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and funds clients. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. which we check through our Russian and international partners, and help them successfully list on partner exchanges. Algorithmic trading of digital funds is still in stagnation and the main focus is on checking the profitability of new NFT projects, the gaming segment, augmented virtual reality, the ability to enter them in advance, before they appear on the general exchange, at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and funds clients. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. Algorithmic trading of digital funds is still in stagnation and the main focus is on checking the profitability of new NFT projects, the gaming segment, augmented virtual reality, the ability to enter them in advance, before they appear on the general exchange, at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and funds clients. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. Algorithmic trading of digital funds is still in stagnation and the main focus is on checking the profitability of new NFT projects, the gaming segment, augmented virtual reality, the ability to enter them in advance, before they appear on the general exchange, at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and funds clients. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and clients’ funds. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development. at special prices for fund members with their personal capital and clients’ funds. Today, cryptocurrency is a very promising and sought-after direction, which is no longer mainstream, especially given the issuance of a large amount of printed money. Therefore, for me at the moment this is a priority direction of development.
Share your plans for 2022. - For starters, smile three times a day: in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening, earn a billion rubles, implement the Conclave Leader’s project, walk at least 6,000 steps daily, read 50 books, meet a thousand new interesting people from different countries and various hobbies . In addition, in 2022 I plan to implement a project to organize charitable collections to help the world confession and believers. One of the main goals for me is to create a family, so I plan to work in this direction.
