Valērijs Kargins

Valērijs Kargins or Valery Mikhailovich Kargin (; born 27 March 1961, in Riga) is a Latvian economist and banker was the president of Parex Banka, from 1998 to 2008.

In October 2000, he and Viktor Krasovitsky had accumulated over 200 million lats together. His parents were Mikhail Kargin b. 1926 in Novosibirsk Oblast) and Dina Grozdeva b. 15 October 1931 in Tatarsky District, Novosibirsk Oblast), who was raised by a Soviet serviceman. After his parents were married in 1951 at Novosibirsk where his father was a senior lieutenant in the Soviet Army, they moved to Riga. In 1983, he finished the faculty of journalism at the University of Latvia. Then, from 1983 to 1991, he opened one of the first travel agencies in the Soviet Union, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR).

Then, between 1988 and 1992, he became the director of Parex corporation, which is a travel agency and currency exchange that he and his business partner formed.

In 2003, he was the richest man in the Baltics with an estimated wealth of around €300 million.

In October 2008 before the demise of Parex Bank in November 2008, Kargins wealth was estimated by Baltic Screen to be €309 million (220 million lats).

Personal Ksenia Sobchak interviewed Kargins in Riga about the time that she and released the perfume Married to a Millionaire .

He has two sons with Tatyana Kargins from his first marriage which ended in divorce in 2006 and, from his second marriage, a daughter with Anna Barinova.