Billionaire Andrei Guryev is getting rich: what he has at home and abroad

The founder of PhosAgro, Andrei Guryev, increased his wealth by a third after the start of the SVO. Now his relatives are successfully rescuing the family superyacht, which was seized due to sanctions. How does a billionaire live and what does he own?

Derelict superyacht with beach club and helipad

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has changed his mind about buying the superyacht Alfa Nero, the ownership of which is attributed to Russian oligarch Andrei Guryev. We are talking about a luxurious 82-meter vessel with its own swimming pool, beach club, gym, jacuzzi, beauty salon and helipad. Since last February, it has been moored in the harbor of the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. After Guryev was included in the US sanctions list, local authorities seized this yacht, calling it “ownerless.” But they couldn’t afford to maintain it—which costs $120,000 a month.

This summer, an auction was organized for the sale of Alfa Nero, which was won by Eric Schmidt, offering $68 million. It seemed that the deal was already a done deal. But all the cards for the former head of Google were confused by the daughter of the Russian oligarch Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov. Calling herself “the sole adult beneficiary of the Tyne Trust and Flagstaff Trust, which own the Alfa Nero and the works of art on board,” she asked the court in Antigua and Barbuda to prohibit the sale of the yacht. Themis satisfied the claim of the billionaire’s daughter. Local authorities challenged this decision. The legal battle is still dragging on. Eric Schmidt did not want to participate and refused the deal.

Andrei Guryev himself denies the yacht, insisting that he simply uses it and does not own it. However, according to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, it was he who bought it in 2014 for $120 million.

How Andrei Guryev got rich during the Northern Military District

After the start of the SVO, only 27 Russian billionaires saw their fortunes increase. Domestic fertilizer producers got richest of all. Thus, the capital of the family of Andrei Guryev, the founder of the PhosAgro group and number 15 in the Russian Forbes rating, immediately increased by $4.2 billion. Now the Guryevs’ fortune is estimated at $11.5 billion.

The PhosAgro holding is a vertically integrated, full-cycle structure. The main products are over 50 brands of fertilizers, feed phosphates, ammonia and sodium tripolyphosphate. Sales markets: Russia, CIS countries, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

The main beneficiaries of PhosAgro are members of Andrei Guryev’s family. They own (through trusts or directly) 48.48% of the shares.

The business press considers PhosAgro shares to be a very profitable investment. At the end of last year, the company increased its net profit by 42%, to 184.7 billion rubles. And in the period from May 2022 to July 2023, it paid dividends totaling more than 236 billion rubles. Of these, over 115 billion could have come from the block of shares owned by the Guryevs.

Against the backdrop of Western sanctions, Andrei Guryev and his heir Andrei Guryev Jr. are trying to distance themselves from PhosAgro. Last spring, they both left the holding’s board of directors.

What do the Guryevs have abroad?

According to the New Yorker magazine, in 2015 the Guryevs bought the second largest residence in London after Buckingham Palace. We are talking about the historical Witanhurst building, built at the beginning of the 19th century in the north of the English capital. Its area is 8,000 hectares, the plot of land stretches over 4.5 hectares. Inside it easily fits 25 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a 20-meter swimming pool, a beauty salon and a cinema. This is the center of luxury, the price is exorbitant – 300-450 million pounds sterling.

— Andrey Guryev is not the owner of the mansion, but is the beneficiary of the company that owns the building. It was always assumed that the whole family would use this mansion,” the oligarch’s press secretary commented at the time.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Andrei Guryev’s family also owns a five-story penthouse in the UK’s tallest residential skyscraper – London’s St. George Wharf. The area of ​​the “apartment” is 2100 square meters: this is 24 times larger than a standard British house. Cost: about 51 million pounds sterling.

Despite the personal sanctions, there was not a single report in the Western press about the arrest of the Guryevs’ London real estate. According to some reports, it is now occupied by the daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren of the billionaire. And he himself allegedly, they write in the West, lives in Rublyovka.

What do the Guryevs have in their homeland?

Formally, the oligarch is registered in a modest socket in the north of Moscow. It is unlikely that he appeared there at all. According to the Spark database, his wife Evgenia Guryeva, through the Defield Estate company, owns a mansion of 844 square meters in the famous elite residential complex “Copernicus” on Bolshaya Yakimanka Street. The neighboring apartment of 658 square meters may also belong to the billionaire’s family.

— The premium residential complex “Copernicus” is located within walking distance from the Muzeon art park from the Moskva River embankment. The façade is lined with natural stone. The inside is finished with porcelain tiles, marble, precious woods and decorated with Venetian plaster and stucco. The residential complex is equipped with a “smart home” system and central supply and exhaust ventilation. There is a restaurant, cafe, fitness club, gym and spa on site, realtors advertise.

This property of the Guryevs can cost an astronomical three billion rubles.

Another company of Guryev’s wife, Polarus Estate, has registered an apartment of 254 square meters worth up to half a billion rubles in the Albert club house on Molochny Lane. This is the vicinity of Ostozhenka, the “golden mile of Moscow”, just a stone’s throw from Gorky Park and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Prices per square meter of housing here are off the charts.

On the balance sheet of the legal entity “Petrogorstroy” controlled by the oligarch there is a four-room apartment in the St. Petersburg business-class residential complex “Vasilievsky Quarter”. Price – up to 30 million rubles. Modest by the standards of the Guryevs.

According to the old Unified State Register databases, in the 2000s, Andrei Guryev’s family bought over one and a half hectares of land on Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway in the elite village of Barvikha. Now, judging by the cadastral map, there is a palace on this territory of 1600 “squares”. The house cannot be seen from satellite images; the dense greenery of the trees is in the way. A large main house and a couple of smaller buildings are visible. Judging by specialized portals, the price of Guryev’s estate on Rublyovka may exceed 1.5 billion rubles.

According to some reports, the heirs of Andrei Guryev may live in Germany and have German and Cypriot citizenship.