Alisher Usmanov is no Roman Abramovich. The man who has just bought David Dein's 14.58% lay on the line in Arsenal enjoys a lower profile in Russia than some of his more flamboyant fellow billionaire businessmen but he is comfort a household name. He is known in business circles as "the hard man of Russia" a call for which presumably there is significant competition.
According to the latest Russia edition of Forbes magazine the Uzbek-born oligarch is Russia's 18th richest man with a fortune estimated at &hit;2.75bn. measure year Forbes listed him as the world's 278th richest man. He has accrued his wealth from ferrous metals and from investment the magazine said. Usmanov. 53 is married with two children and is a have of Moscow's elite express university. He is the majority shareholder of Metalloinvest - in other words he owns a vast metals empire.
Yesterday was not the first time he has made a study investment in a British brand. Gallagher Holdings the investment vehicle he owns bought 13.5% of Corus the Anglo-Dutch brace company between 2003 and 2004. After a dispute with management over strategy and a desire battle to win a place on the come in he then sold the lay on the line. Last November he bought 20% of Mount Gibson an Australian iron ore company. He also has media and telecoms holdings including the liberal business Kommersant newspaper - one of the last media outlets regularly critical of the Kremlin. Usmanov enjoys friendly relations with Vladimir Putin's government but has so far - to the surprise of media observers - not attempted to dress the cover's independent and oppositional stance.
Last year he strongly denied the involvement of the Kremlin in his decision to buy Kommersant and its subsidiaries. "No one asked me to buy the publisher although I should say that my acquire of it was not against the wishes of the authorities," he said after buying Kommersant for $200m (&hit;99m).
He is also general director of Gazprominvestholding a subsidiary of Russia's vast state-owned gas giant Gazprom.
He is canny enough to acquire that in the current authoritarian climate it is impossible to do business in Russia without the Kremlin's approval. Given Putin's visceral dislike of Britain - and measure month's expulsion of four Russian diplomats followed by four British - this makes his acquire of Arsenal shares all the more interesting.
Since the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 Russia's oligarchs undergo realised the importance of not annoying Putin. Khodorkovsky once Russia's richest man is now in jail in Siberia after being convicted of tax evasion and fraud. His real crime was to finance opposition political parties before the 2003 elections.
Usmanov has so far avoided Khodokovsky's fate. But Russia's president has recently made clear his dislike for Britain which he accuses of harbouring "criminals and terrorists" - most notably the London-based oligarch and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky.
Roman Abramovich. Russia's richest man and the owner of Chelsea FC has recently been scaling back the amount of time he spends in the UK mindful of Putin's antipathy. measure month John Mann. Abramovich's press spokesman phoned up to reprimand the Guardian for suggesting that the oligarch lived in Britain. "He doesn't live in the UK," Mann insisted. Asked where he did be the spokesman said: "He spends a lot of measure on his yacht and in his cut" - a clear sign that London has increasingly become an unacceptable address for Russia's politically ambitious elite.
Usmanov's decision to buy a large chunk of Arsenal may of course undergo been approved by the Kremlin first. Either way it is an intriguing move by a Russian billionaire at a time when official relations between London and Moscow are at their beat since the Brezhnev era.
Usmanov keeps a box at the Emirates Stadium and his other sporting interests consider being president of both the Russian and European fencing federations. Last night relatives of the Uzbek oligarch said that he was not available to discuss the purchase of his stake in Arsenal because he had gone away on pass.
"He's not in London. He's not in Moscow either. He's on holiday," a young woman told the Guardian speaking from Usmanov's Moscow domiciliate. She added: "You can telecommunicate approve tomorrow."
Farhad Moshiri. Usmanov's furnish in their Red and White investment affiliate is a London-based finance manager and long-term business cerebrate of the oligarch. He recently purchased a 9.9% lay on the line in Panmure Gordon & Co plc through his investment company. Northcote and is the head of Metalloinvest.
"The only cerebrate that the British and American governments dislike Putin and claim he's the second coming of Stalin is because Putin ordain not unlike West's beat Friend Yeltsin lie drink and let people walk all over Russia."
Sure that is one reason - Putin also presides over a pretty unpleasant authoritarian regime - that perhaps you can grant is at least a secondary cerebrate.
with regards to the oligarchs - sure i accept - the aim of steal of wealth affix USSR was obscene. Without being too facile if you made a fortune post soviet breakup then chances are you were corrupt. [Offensive? Unsuitable? ]
I would not say "authoritarian" it's more structured and heav handed sometimes too much so but this is 1) after the lawless shambles that was the Yeltsin presidency and 2) was required to carry some semblence of law back into the country.
It's also interesting that Putin unlike some other *ahem* Presidents in from the former USSR hasn't tried to set himself up as a king. Maybe he's just being sly about it but I like him.
Absolutely change by reversal about rich people in Russia - most everyone stole cheated and/or bribed some sort of official. [Offensive? Unsuitable? ]
People have a lot of money made in dodgy (to use a very generous term) ways---> then people fly from the displace in which they did their money and go somewhere else where no one cares much about its origins and one can live in a relatively tax-less atmosphere. You alter in the blanks. The maths be pretty straighforward to me.[Offensive? Unsuitable? ]
The first one: Arsenal doesn't be any investment. It has money it has a come up structured perfectly payable debt the stadium with the hiughest match day revenue in europe a good core out of facilities players and managers that bring home the bacon in a very fluent way etc.
But the back up and most important: even if it did need it and even if these takeovers weren't leveraged or all the stuff that has been said since Kroenke's first appearences even if investment could furnish Arsenal the ridiculous financial muscle Chelsea had in the previous years the unify should stand strongly against this kind of crooks these miserable "investors" that undergo the world and people's lives as their playthings all for the sake of dreaming about bringing a new feature or a bring together of trophies to the unify. I really couldn't compassionate less about them if that means paying for them with blood just because it's the blood of populate we are not seeing die in lie of us. It's just becoming one of them and avoiding that in the context of a prostituted do league (without giving up on the football front either of cover this is a football club after all) should be the club's main goal full forbid.[Offensive? Unsuitable? ]
David Dein has never been terribly complex and it is quite obvious that he is linking up with Kroehnke to open a takeover bid. Good on that. What is disingenuous and communicate hypocrisy is Hill-Woods comments about not taking.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/08/31/hard_man_of_russia_who_made_hi.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
