The fortunes of the Russian oligarchs near the Kremlin are governed by the West, who have begun to maneuver their escape routes to protect their assets from economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. For this reason, the societal bloc began to expand the magnifying glass to review the possible use of tokens and family members by business leaders who support the government of Vladimir Putin in order not to lose their power in the most important companies in Europe.
The last alert jumped in Germany on Friday. Olaf Schultz’s government has opened an investigation to clarify the sale of Alexei Mordashov’s stake in the German tour operator TUI, a company in which, until the end of February, he was the largest Russian shareholder, 34% of the European Tourist Group, a share valued at about 1,500 million euros.
On February 28, the same day his name was reported to be on the EU’s sanctions list for Russian oligarchs, Mordashov transferred 4.13% of his shares in TUI to Severgroup, Russia’s slick investment vehicle. In addition, as stated in the TUI statement, the steel entrepreneur through its two subsidiaries KN-Holding and Rayglow sold the rest of his shares (29.9%) in Unifirm to Ondero Ltd, a Virgin Islands-based company. tax haven.
The development of the operation was that Marina Mordashov, the wife of the Russian steel magnate, is the largest shareholder in Ondero Limited, TUI reported on Friday, so it is now the largest Russian shareholder in the German tourism giant. her husband. “In the new notification, the company was informed that Marina Mordashov was already a major shareholder in Ondero Limited at the time of the share transfer on February 28, 2022,” TUI said.
In light of the new information, the German Economy Ministry confirmed on Friday that it had launched an investigation under the Payments and Foreign Trade Act against Ondero Limited to analyze the effectiveness of the company’s stock transaction. For this reason, TUI informed that until this procedure is completed, “the transaction is currently invalid and the voting rights of Unifirm Limited cannot be exercised,” as the German government clarified.
Mordashov, who is considered the fourth richest person in Russia and a close ally of Putin, has already used his wife’s personality as a guarantee of his fortune. As Bloomberg reported, in early March, the Russian oligarch transferred control of the $1.1 billion stake in the Nordgold mining company to his wife.
Italy targets Mordashov real estate
Italy confiscated, on Friday, a luxury villa in the port of the city of Olbia in Sardinia, in the west of the country, from Russian businessman Alexei Mordashov, as part of the sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine, according to government sources.
The villa for residential use has a value of around 105 million euros and was seized after an investigation with the Guardia de Finanza (tax crime and border police). Italy had already seized the mega yacht “Lady M”, which is moored in the port of Imperia, northwest of the country, from Mordsov, the head of the Severstal group of minerals and energy.
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