Steel oligarch is secret Hirst buyer

One of the anonymous buyers at the recent, record-breaking Damien Hirst auction at Sotheby’s has been revealed as Viktor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian steel billionaire. Pinchuk owned up to his participation in the Hirst auction yesterday, in an interview outside his home in Kiev: "Yes, I bought at the recent Hirst auction, but I won't name works. You must wait until spring when I'll display new acquisitions."

The Ukrainian’s purchases at Sotheby’s certainly are the latest in a long line of excursions into the world of art auctions. In 2006 he opened the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev, which now houses works by artists such as Hirst, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. Simon de Pury, chairman of Phillips de Pury & Co auction house said: "Viktor Pinchuk is having a great impact on the market. Ever since he opened the centre others in the Ukraine and Russia have taken an interest in contemporary art."

Pinchuk, who is said to be worth more than $5bn, was one of the original oligarchs who hoovered up capital in post-Soviet Russia under President Boris Yeltsin. As well as leading Interpipe - one of the Ukraine’s leading steel groups - Pinchuk also owns four television channels and a newspaper in his native country. Every year Pinchuk is also a fixture at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where he hosts a "Ukrainian lunch" designed to boost interest in his home country. Past lunches have given him the opportunity to hobnob with Bill Clinton and George Soros.

He has been married twice and his second wife, Elena Franchuk, made the British papers in February when she purchased what was then London’s most expensive home: a five-storey Victorian villa in Kensington costing £80m. Franchuk, a philanthropist, is the daughter of former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and considers Sir Elton John "a good friend".