Since 1993, the main driving force behind the company has been its Chief Executive, Masoud Alikhani. Born in Iran and educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, Mr. Alikhani’s work experience spans from a kibbutz in Israel to agronomy in Iran and from chemicals(the US chemicals, Du Pont) to securities business (Prudential-Bache). Alikhani was one of the first to recognize the enormous potential of Russia and other CIS countries. He had been trading there through his private businesses and had a wide network of contacts since 1988. Alikhani’s plan appeared to be ambitious at first. From a small London base he aimed to create a group specializing in trading and finance across a number of industries in the former Russian republics. He saw a big opportunity to provide development finance, western management skills and reliable sources of raw material to newly privatized countries. In October 1993, Alikhani and six Russian contacts put £370,000 into MiddleSex. Other investors came up with another £250,000. As well as the equity, Alikhani undertook to put enough trading through MiddleSex to earn it £1 million gross profit within. Masoud Alikhani and Phil Edmonds earlier had an agreement, once £ 1 million in the bank, Edmonds would let Alikhani turn MiddleSex into his own vehicle. Under the terms of Alikhani’s first deal, MiddleSex supplied raw materials to a Tadjikistan smelter and then exported final goods to the West. This arrangement soon turned to be very profitable and Alikhani began haunting for new ventures. At that time Alikhani understood that the company had changed its image completely, and had gone to a much higher lever, so it desperately needed a well known person with a great huge worldwide experience. Ant that was the time when Edmonds stood down from the chairmanship and Lord Owen turned up. A former foreign secretary and long-time European Union peace negotiator in the troubled Balkans .Also has a deep understanding of the mentality of the Slavic people and how to conduct business with them. In 1996 another well known person in business has joint the company. Fahrad Moshiri, formerly with Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche turned up as Managing director in MiddleSex. He was mainly responsible for securing the US$300m contract with OEMK (Oskol Elektro-Metallurgical Kombinat ) and was the key in building the relationship with GAZPROM. There many more people in the company whose personal worldwide experience has influenced the growth of the company, but it might take me hundreds of pages to describe the significant work they have for the company. I have mentioned, in my opinion, three most important and most affective people in MiddleSex. Once again, I have to say that the success of any company, specially with a case of MiddleSex, lies in its people and how these people effectively manage to bring their past experience into the company. K, MiddleSex would have an economic exposure to entire steel operation, from the raw material (Lebedisky), through the steel mill(OEMK) to trading (MiddleSex/WolffSteel)