Financier aided Russian economy

Boris Fyodorov, 50, a reformist financier who helped bring the Russian economy out of the post-Soviet chaos, has died, his company said in a statement. Russian television said he suffered a heart attack in London three weeks ago and died in a clinic there.

Born in Moscow in 1958, Fyodorov was among the economists who fostered reforms in Russia before and after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. He also founded one of the country’s largest investment banks, United Financial Group.

Fyodorov’s background was in the planned socialist economy, but he was one of the first Russian financiers to adopt the Western model of a liberal market economy. In 1990, he was one of the authors of “500 Days,” an anti-crisis program that envisaged the end of price regulation and the privatization of state companies.

But all did not work out as planned: The results of privatization were flawed, and a small group of businessmen known as oligarchs amassed vast fortunes and gained control over key sectors of the Russian economy.

Fyodorov held several top government posts in the 1990s, including finance minister and vice premier, and was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

More recently, he had focused on expanding his businesses and had joined the board of the state-owned natural gas monopoly Gazprom.