Alisher Usmanov will continue to earn money in Russia and invest in the USA
Alisher Usmanov wrote a statement about his resignation from the bureau of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP). The 69-year-old billionaire motivated his act by “retirement and retirement from active work.” Thus, it turns out that Usmanov took a demonstrative step to dissociate himself from Russia.
Usmanov’s departure from the RSPP looked like a real PR campaign. The list of members of the bureau of the board of the RSPP stopped publishing a long time ago (last year it included 27 people). So it was possible to get out of this “trade union of billionaires” quietly. However, Usmanov’s statement addressed to the head of the RSPP, Alexander Shokhin, seemed to be deliberately leaked into an anonymous Telegram channel. Well, in the current situation, Usmanov, perhaps, could not do otherwise. Another question is whether he will eventually be able to exclaim, like the hero of a famous film: “The prank was a success!”
At first glance, Usmanov’s act falls on a par with the actions of his former colleagues in the RSPP Ruben Vardanyan and Kakha Bendukidze. The first one left the bureau of the board of the RSPP last year and even handed over his Russian passport in order to eventually head the government of Nagorno-Karabakh. And the late Bendukidze back in 2004 parted ways with business in Russia and went into politics in Georgia. Usmanov seems to fit into their system. However, there is no real reason for this.
It does not seem that Usmanov actually planned to dedicate his old age to his homeland, Uzbekistan, as PR people are now trying to present him. The activity of the billionaire in Uzbekistan primarily concerns the humanitarian sphere. The Usmanov Charitable Foundation gave money for the construction of the Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent, for the restoration of cultural monuments, and the billionaire also helped the Pakhtakor football club. As for business, they usually talk about the cooperation of the Russian holding Metalloinvest (which is controlled by Usmanov) with the Uzbek Metallurgical Combine. But it’s not all that simple. 81% of the company belongs to the state, and the rest – to legal entities, the list of which is not disclosed. Moreover, there are persistent rumors that the company’s financial flows are controlled by the SFI Management Group, which is associated with relatives of high-ranking local officials. So it is likely that Usmanov’s name in conversations about the Uzbek Iron and Steel Works is used as a distraction.
Wouldn’t it be more correct in this case to say that the Uzbeks agreed to shelter a fellow tribesman in exchange for generous donations for culture and sports? At the same time, loud statements about the transfer of Usmanov’s sphere of interests from Russia to Uzbekistan may be useful to him in order to get rid of European sanctions. Therefore, membership in the RSPP could be an obstacle to his plan to return to his full disposal the wealth frozen by Europe. However, the situation with European property is already somewhat murky.
Back in May, it became known that Usmanov began to challenge European personal sanctions against himself in court, but so far no results have been heard. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice that Europe treated Usmanov quite gently. The villas in Germany and Switzerland, registered to European legal entities, which Usmanov used, were not only confiscated, they were not even frozen. Also in the spring, the German press reported on the detention of the yacht Dilbar at the shipyard in Bremen. The ship was registered as a legal entity, but the Germans unearthed their connection with the sister of the billionaire Gulbahor Ismailova – after that the woman was on the sanctions lists and it was decided to freeze the yacht. But there is a discrepancy in this story: ship tracking services show that since July the Dilbar yacht has been located not in Bremen, but in the port of Olbia in Sardinia. Just not far from another property owned by Usmanov.
By the way, earlier there was a message that employees of the Italian Financial Guard froze real estate in Sardinia that belonged to Alisher Usmanov. The catch is that the local press associated seven villas with the Russian oligarch, but only one of them turned out to be frozen. Lawyers explained to reporters that the rest of the property actually belongs to a trust, of which Usmanov is not a beneficiary. That is, here the billionaire managed to save his own.
Already in January, another news appeared: the yacht Irina VU, detained in Croatia, which the authorities associated with Usmanov, escaped from arrest. And although the local press realized only now, the ship actually sailed to Turkey in the fall. Croatian journalists write that the authorities considered the yacht to belong to structures associated with Alisher Usmanov and his ex-wife, the president of the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation, Irina Viner. Usmanov’s representative said that the businessman “does not own the Irina VU yacht, which is mentioned in the Croatian press, and cannot in any way be connected with her disappearance from the port of Betina.” At the same time, he recalled that Usmanov divorced his wife in the summer of 2022. Perhaps it was the divorce from his wife that allowed Usmanov to withdraw both the yacht and the estate in Sardinia from the sanctions strike.
The Usmanovs’ divorce should be discussed separately. In May, Alisher Usmanov filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Magistrate’s Court for divorce from his wife, with whom he had lived for 30 years. The case promised to become a source of high-profile news, because the couple had to share property worth $ 11.5 billion (this is how Forbes estimates Usmanov’s fortune). However, after a few days the claim was withdrawn. And soon Irina Viner told the press that the divorce took place at the registry office, since the spouses had no financial claims against each other, and they had no minor children. What assets were transferred to the gymnast remained unknown. Interestingly, unlike Alisher Usmanov’s sister, his now ex-wife was not included in the European sanctions list. So divorce could well be a convenient way to get expensive property out of the restrictions.
It turns out that Usmanov’s tactics of distancing himself from Russia and moving to Uzbekistan have borne fruit? He is formally under sanctions, but at the same time, the attitude of European officials towards him is very loyal. Washington also does not rage. The US Treasury first distributed a press release in which Usmanov was mentioned among the sanctioned oligarchs, and then quietly posted documents on its website, the contents of which are disclosed by Forbes: “Usmanov is not on the list of persons blocked by OFAC – property and shares of legal persons with his participation in the United States are unblocked, they are allowed to write off funds from their accounts. This exception does not apply to Usmanov’s assets or financial operations of companies if they were previously restricted for other reasons. Albeit with reservations, there are still no blocking sanctions.
What could be the reason for such loyalty of overseas partners to the Russian businessman? Perhaps it’s all about his investment policy. Recently, the billionaire regularly sent money earned in Russia to the United States. Moreover, he did not invest himself and not on his own behalf. Hundreds of millions of dollars are transferred under the management of American investment funds, and their managers are already investing in promising projects, supporting American industry. In the fall, the Wall Street Journal gave such an example. The Bridgewaters fund invested Usmanov’s money in the Quanergy startup. The company designs lidar systems – these are technologies for remote sensing of the Earth’s surface from space, which, in particular, can be used for military intelligence. The Bridgewaters fund also invested money from clients, including Russian billionaires, in companies such as Meta* Platforms Inc (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia), Twitter and Airbnb Inc., and real estate throughout Europe.
Usmanov’s main source of income is the Metalloinvest holding, the world leader in the production of hot briquetted iron. Metalloinvest includes the leading mining and processing enterprises of Russia: Lebedinsky and Mikhailovsky GOKs, as well as large metallurgical enterprises: the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant and the metal recycling company UralMetCom. For the first half of 2021, Metalloinvest allocated 117 billion rubles for dividends. Metalloinvest belongs to the USM holding, in which Usmanov had at different times from 60 to 49%. More than 10% of the holding is owned by foreign companies whose ultimate beneficiaries are unknown. USM also owns the mobile operator Megafon and Ackerman Cement.