Alischer Burchanowitsch Usmanov

Alisher Usmanov (2013)

Alischer Burchanowitsch Usmanow ( Russian Алишер Бурханович Усманов , scientific transliteration Ališer Burhanovič Usmanov ; born  September 9, 1953 in Tschust , Uzbek SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Russian entrepreneur and billionaire of Uzbek origin.

Usmanov is general director of Gazprom - subsidiary Gazprominvestholding , co-owner of metalloinvest and owner of the Russian publishing house Kommersant , in which the influential business daily Kommersant appears.

Life

Childhood and youth

Alisher Usmanov was born into the family of Burchan Usmanov, prosecutor of the Uzbek capital Tashkent , and Dilbara Usmanova, a Russian teacher. Usmanov and his family belonged to the social and political elite of communist Uzbekistan due to their father's privileged position as public prosecutor. He has three younger brothers and a sister. His birthplace is Tschust, but he grew up and went to school in the city of Namangan . As a child he really wanted to play football , but his severe shortsightedness prevented him from being approved by the responsible sports department. When he was a child, he read The Three Musketeers and decided to learn fencing . Usmanov turned out to be talented, because two years after starting fencing, he was part of the youth team of the Uzbek SSR, and later even the national team of the USSR.

Between 1966 and 1981 Usmanov was a member of the Soviet youth association Komsomol , in the 1970s he joined the CPSU .

Education

Usmanov studied international law at the Moscow Institute for International Relations between 1971 and 1976 , although it was only the second attempt that he managed to join the Soviet Foreign Ministry's cadre school. He justified his persistence with the desire to become a diplomat. At the institute he established close contacts with his professor Yevgeny Primakov , who later became the head of the foreign intelligence service, foreign minister and prime minister of Russia. His fellow student and roommate was Sergei Vladimirovich Yastrschembski , who became an advisor to President Vladimir Putin in 2000. In an interview in 2011, Jastrschembski spoke about the student days together: “We studied together for five unforgettable years! He came from Tashkent, and in Moscow, like all those who had arrived, he waved to live in a student residence. But shortly before the second year we were already close friends, so I offered him to move into our apartment. The friendship between our families continues to this day. "

After that, Usmanov worked in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR , at the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Uzbekistan, and finally became Director General of the Foreign Trade Committee of the Soviet Propaganda Organization Committee for Defense of Peace in Tashkent.

Proceedings, Detention and Rehabilitation

On August 19, 1980, Usmanov was admitted by the military tribunal of the Turkestan military district (based in Tashkent) for fraud and aiding and abetting accepting bribes, along with Bachadyr Nasymow, son of the Uzbekistan's deputy KGB chief , and Ilcham Shaikov, son of the Uzbek agriculture minister Sentenced to eight years in prison. The conviction came, Usmanov is quoted in The Guardian, because of an internal power struggle of the local KGB. He was "... tricked into accepting a bribe."

On March 26, 1986, he was released early for "sincere repentance" and "good conduct". These are typical legal expressions used to justify early release from prison. Usmanov himself declared that he was the victim of political repression and in 2000 the Uzbek Supreme Court rehabilitated him.

According to the knowledge of the former FSB employee Alexander Litvinenko , Usmanov was prosecuted according to the Criminal Code of the Uzbek SSR according to Art. 17-152 Part 2 ("Attempted Bribery"), Art. 129 Part 2 ("Fraud") and Art. 119 ("Robbery state and common property by fraud ”).

Uzmanov responded to the accusation that the rehabilitation was the consequence of his success as an entrepreneur and was carried out on the instructions of the President of Uzbekistan, Islom Karimov , by stating that he had no business in Uzbekistan and had no relationship with President Karimov. The decision to fully rehabilitate him was taken by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, not the President.

Professional orientation and further training

After his release from prison in 1986, Usmanov worked temporarily as a translator from Arabic. Friends finally helped him in 1987 to get a job in the laboratory of the Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Andijon, Uzbekistan . There he worked as a patent specialist and obtained his second university degree in patents in Moscow in 1987 . His professor at the Moscow Institute for International Relations, Radomir Bogdanov, finally helped him to get employed at the Foreign Trade Association of the Peace Committee of the Soviet Union.

In 1997 Usmanov graduated from the Finance Academy of the Government of the RF (today: Finance University of the Government of the Russian Federation ) with a degree in banking.

Usmanov speaks Uzbek , Russian , English and French .

family

The billionaire has been married to Irina Winer from Samarkand , trainer of the Russian national team for rhythmic gymnastics , since 1992 . They met as teenagers in Tashkent. The couple have no children together. From their first marriage, Winer has a son, Anton (Nathan) Winer, who owns several clubs, restaurants and beauty salons in Uzbekistan. Usmanov professes Islam , his wife Irina is of Jewish faith (cf. Bucharian Jews ).

Usmanov as an entrepreneur

Hunting tourism

At the end of the 1980s, around 1986/87, Usmanov began his business activities as Vice President of the Belgian-Uzbek joint venture VITA based in Tashkent, which included the Assoziazija 8-oj den organization . This was a kind of tourist agency that organized VIP tours in the Pamir Mountains . This business turned out to be unprofitable due to the seasonal nature and the lack of bookings.

Trade in plastic bags and cigarettes

During one of his trips to Moscow, Usmanov suffered a broken leg and spent many days lying in the hotel "Budapest". Out of boredom he read a book by his roommate, a chemical engineer, about the technology of polymer processing . He found the economic aspect more interesting than the polymer technology: 30,000 plastic bags could be made from one ton of raw material worth 437 rubles and sold for around one ruble each. So Usmanow came up with the idea of ​​establishing the Agroplast cooperative for the production of polyethylene bags together with some partners at the end of 1987 . The bags, according to an agreement with Director Konstantin Viktorovich Kunizkij, in the premises of the produced agro-industrial combine Ramenskij in the city of Ramenskoye , Moscow region. Business was excellent because plastic bags were in short supply in the USSR. Two years later, when Agroplast was already making millions in sales and was the largest production company in the Moscow region, Usmanov suddenly announced his withdrawal from this line of business.

His next business idea, trading in cigarettes, initially brought him a gigantic profit. At the end of the 1980s there were frequent delivery failures in the Soviet cigarette trade. Usmanov was able to buy cigarettes of the American brand "Magna" for 30 cents per pack and sell them within the Soviet Union for at least twice as much via the joint venture between Tschelik and Agroplast and with the help of a foreign exchange account in Promstrojbank USSR. When the dollar rose sharply in the early 1990s, the company went downhill, so that Tschelik-Agroplast had a mountain of debt of 26 million dollars in 1993. Usmanov was left alone with these debts after his partners left abroad. Out of this difficult situation him have his friends Andrei Skotsch and Lew Kwetnoi helped out by Usmanov for their assets vouched . So he was able to take out a bank loan of $ 14 million. Usmanov was able to repay the loan just four months later, having earned 40 million with the help of government zero-coupon bonds (Russian Государственные краткосрочные облигации) and other securities . Usmanov's business acumen impressed Skotsch and Kvetnoi so much that the two became his partners in the investment company Interfin . At least that's what the Russian-language Forbes said. In a 2003 interview with the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Usmanov justified his withdrawal from the tobacco industry with “ideological considerations” because he did not want to deal with something that “harms people's health”.

Finance

After the collapse of the Soviet Union , free capital began to penetrate the economic structures of Russia more and more and Usmanov understood, according to his own statement, that business can best be done through financial institutions. In the 1990s, Usmanov was involved in the establishment and management of numerous banks and companies:

• From 1990 to 1994 he was the first deputy general director of the company ZAO Interkross .
• He was also a member of the board of directors of Pervyj Russkij nezawisimyj bank (German: First Russian Independent Bank , PRNB for short), founded in 1991 .
• In December 1992 he founded the Bars company in Moscow .
• In June 1993 he founded PRNB-Inwest , a subsidiary of PRNB.
• As CEO of PRNB had Usmanov the idea for the Moscow Aviation Production company MiG (Russian. Московское авиационное производственное объединение МиГ shortly MAPO MiG), which until now MiG -Militärflugzeuge manufactures to launch a company-owned bank to life. In 1993, PRNB co-founded the MAPO bank , in which Usmanov was co-owner and first deputy chairman between 1995 and 1997. At the same time, from 1994 to 1995 he was the advisor to Vladimir Vasilyevich Kuzmin, general director of the armaments company MAPO MiG.
• Between 1994 and 1998 Usmanov held the post of general manager of the securities trading company Interfin . Banks Wozrozhdenije and MAPO each invested 10 million in the share capital of Interfin . Interfin’s shareholders in 1998 included Middlesex Holdings plc (40%), MAPO-Bank (40%) and Gazprom (20%). Usmanov, Skotsch and Kvetnoi became sole owners of Interfin through a management buyout .

In 1989, Usmanov met the British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri, who became one of his closest confidants. During their first collaboration, they formed a friendly bond because Moshiri translated articles from the Financial Times for Usmanov. The British newspaper became the most important textbook of "western business" for the later billionaire. In 1991, Usmanov, Moshiri and Yuri Petrov, heads of Boris Yeltsin's administration , tried to set up an insurance company in London that would cover Russia's political risks in order to encourage foreign investment in Russia.

In addition to Moshiri, Usmanov had another friend of Iranian descent: Masoud Amir Alikhani, who owned the London investment firm Middlesex Holdings . In 1993, Moshiri were named financial director of Middlesex Holdings and Usmanov was named vice president. The company traded in aluminum and petroleum products from the countries of the CIS . The aluminum came from the Tajik Aluminum Works (TadAZ), among others. Middlesex was the first London company to have Russian shareholders. The investment company was later renamed GNE Group and sold.

Real economy

In the mid-1990s, the Interfin owners decided to switch from the financial sector to the real economy . At that time, the company already owned 40% of the electric steel mill in Stary Oskol and 51% of Arkhangelskgeologdobytscha , a geological mining company in Arkhangelsk - where Usmanov was a member of the board of directors between 1997 and 2001 - which deals with oil and diamond deposits in northern Europe Russia decreed. In 2001 they sold their stake in the Arkhangelsk company for $ 150 million. Also in the second half of the 1990s, Usmanov sat on the board of directors of the Arkhangelskije almazy joint stock company .

Gazprom

Usmanov needed new partners to enter the metallurgical industry, ideally with the Russian energy company Gazprom . The supervisor of his dissertation, Leonid Openkin, a Gazprom employee, arranged for him to meet with the chairman of the board, Rem Vyachirew . Usmanov offered Vyachirev a stake in the metallurgical businesses of Middlesex Holdings , and Vyachirev agreed. Gazprom then acquired a 20% stake in Interfin , which already owned shares in the electric steelworks in Stary Oskol. Usmanov was first deputy general director from November 1998 to February 2000 and then general director of Gazprominvestholding until 2015 , so that the further acquisition of metallurgical companies was carried out by the subsidiary of Gazprom . By 2001 Gazprominvestholding owned 57% of the shares in the Lebedinsky Mining and Processing Combine in Gubkin and another 17% in the electric steelworks in Stary Oskol.

At the same time, Usmanov and Moshiri became Vyachirev's financial advisors . In this role they arranged for the financing of Gazprom by Western credit institutions and, for example, organized a meeting in 1998 between Vyachirev and the head of the Japanese bank Nomura . This was Gazprom's first attempt to obtain a foreign loan, but no agreement was reached because of the 1998 ruble crisis .

In 2000 there was a change of power in Russia when Vladimir Putin became the new president . He arranged for a review of Gazprom personnel. As a result, Vyachirev was replaced by Alexei Miller as CEO. Other employees also had to vacate their posts. Usmanov not only managed to remain in power company, but to even be entrusted with an important new task, namely the retrieval of the former Gazprom - assets . Because even under Vyachirev, some of these assets migrated to the companies of his friends. The Strojtransgaz concern received z. B. 1995 4.8% of Gazprom -Aktien, the license for the South Russian gas deposits became the property of the Russian energy company Itera and control of the petrochemical -Holding Sibur would Gazprom almost the general manager of Sibur transferred Yakov Goldowski. The executives of all these Gazprom subsidiaries wanted to negotiate the return of the assets exclusively with Usmanov, at least that is what the Russian business magazine "Forbes" claims. And Usmanov successfully coped with this task, because thanks to him, Severneftegazprom , Zapsibgazprom and Sibur , among others , became part of the energy giant again.

On October 13, 2014, Usmanov left the post of General Director of Gazprominvestholding . The billionaire wants to put his energy into social projects and philanthropy in the future . Charity plays a bigger role in his current life. Experts declared Usmanov's farewell by saying that the time for great tasks for which Usmanov had been hired was now over. He has successfully resolved problems of federal importance, such as the return of problematic assets to Gazprom and the restructuring of debts.

Mining and metallurgy

In parallel to his career within Gazprom, Usmanov built his own metal empire.

In 2003, at a time when the Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus was making heavy losses , Usmanow bought through his Cypriot investment company Gallagher Holdings Ltd. a smaller block of shares in the group at a price of 4.5p per share and sold it for 8p in a very short time. He then took a bigger gamble by acquiring more blocks of Corus shares, which ultimately paid off for him as the company recovered in 2004. Usmanov, together with his friends, including the chairman of the Petrokommerz bank Vladimir Nikitenko, entrepreneur Vasily Vasilyevich Anizimov and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov , bought Corus shares for $ 614 million (53.5 pence each) at the end of 2004 12 times the price, sell again. With the purchase of the shares in Corus, Usmanov was one of the first Russian billionaires to participate in large-scale foreign corporations.

After successfully trading stocks, Anisimow became Usmanov's business partner in the mining and metallurgy company Metalloinwest . In 2004, Anisimov negotiations with the Georgians Boris Ivanishvili , the largest Russian mining and ore dressing combines (Russian горно-обогатительные комбинаты, in short. GOK) included: Stojlenskij GOK in Stary Oskol and Mikhailovsky GOK in Zheleznogorsk , 40% also Lebedinskij GOK Gubkin. Ivanishvili had a tense relationship with Usmanov, according to Forbes, because the two were competing for the Lebedinsky GOK shares in the 1990s, which is why Usmanov did not conduct the negotiations personally. In December 2004, Ivanishvili agreed to sell 97% of the shares in Mikhailovsky GOK to Usmanov for $ 1.65 billion. Usmanow received the capital for this transaction from VTB .

In an interview with Ekspert magazine in February 2005 , Usmanov announced that he had the idea of merging some of the CIS iron ore companies into a unified mining and smelting company that would dictate iron ore prices to the world, and that he was ready to do so To dedicate life. The newspaper Vedomosti reported in May 2005 that the Russian businessman Usmanov and Anisimov the governments of Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine a concept for the creation of a Eurasian Montan Organization (russ. Евразийская горно-металлургическая компания, EGMK) vorlegten based on five mining and processing combines of . In Usmanov's opinion, this is necessary because the Russian GOKs are “dwarfs compared to CVRD , BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto ”. The consolidation of the Mikhailovsky GOK and Lebedinskij GOK in Russia, the largest production association for mining and processing Sokolow-Sarbaj (russ. Соколовско-Сарбайское горно-обогатительное производственное объединение, SSGPO) in Kazakhstan and the Juzhnyj GOK and Ingulezkij GOK in Ukraine would allow to build the fourth largest mining company in the world with an annual output of 78 million tons of iron ore. In the union, the iron ore reserves of Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine would amount to 70 billion tons. According to Usmanow, this is many times higher than the reserves of Brazil, Australia and China, the most influential countries on the world iron ore market.

On this announcement by Usmanov there were critical voices from the iron and steel industry. Should the EGMK actually come about, it would take over the monopoly on iron ore in Russia and the former republics of the USSR. Smaller iron works would then have no other alternative than to buy the required raw material for a price dictated by the EGMK. As early as May 2005, an internal war broke out within the Russian iron and steel industry when the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) Viktor Filipowitsch Raschnikow refused to sign a long-term contract for iron ore delivery with Usmanov and his Mikhailovsky GOK because he did not agreed to the price set therein. At Usmanov's instigation, Michailowskij GOK, Lebedinskij GOK and the Kazakh company SSGPO interrupted the iron ore delivery to MMK. Rashnikov concluded agreements with other Russian and Ukrainian suppliers on favorable terms, achieved a significant reduction in the tariff for the rail transport of raw materials from Ukraine by the Russian authority “Federal Service for Tariffs” and thus survived the “May blockade” initiated by Usmanov ". The merger of the Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh mining companies to form the Eurasian Mining Organization did not materialize.

But Usmanov did not give up and built his company Metalloinwest into Russia's largest iron ore producer. First Metalloinwest was incorporated into the Uralskaya Stal Metallurgical Combine in Novotroitsk , of which Usmanov and Oleg Deripaska have been partners since 2002 ; In 2005, Gazmetall , whose partners were Usmanow, Skotsch and Kvetnoi, was taken over by Metalloinwest . Between 2004 and 2008 the prices for steel and metals on the world market increased fourfold. In 2005 Metalloinwest had revenues of approximately $ 2.3 billion. The metallurgical company has since become the financial starting point for all of Usmanov's business. 2006 belonged to Metalloinwest : Lebedinskij GOK , Michailowskij GOK , Uralskaja Stal , Oskolskij Elektrostahlwerk, Moldawskij metallurgitscheskij zawod (German: Moldavian ironworks, short: MMZ), mechanical engineering group Ormeto-YUMZ as well as the transport companies Metalloinwesttrans and RudMetTrans .

Usmanov has been a member of the administrative office of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs since 2006, where he is the committee leader responsible for improving supervisory activities and removing administrative barriers.

In 2006, Usmanow acquired through Epion Holdings Ltd. for 43.5 million dollars 19.95% shares in the Canadian AG Nautilus Minerals Inc. The company received the world's first license for the mining of valuable metals ( gold , silver , copper , rare earth metals ) from the government of Papua New Guinea Bottom of the Bismarcksee . Production at the Solwara 1 deposit should begin in 2014.

In November 2006, Metalloinwest acquired Gallagher Holdings Ltd. through Usmanow's investment company. 19.9% ​​of the Australian iron ore producer Mount Gibson Iron Ltd. for around $ 76.6 million.

Usmanov was one of the first Russian businessmen to make portfolio investments in foreign mining and metallurgy companies. In 2007 he bought Gallagher Holdings Ltd. for 17 million US dollars 12.32% of the shares of the Australian gold producer Medusa Mining Ltd. who is engaged in the exploration, evaluation, development and mining of gold, nickel and copper in Australia and the Philippines , primarily in the Co-O mine in Mindanao . In 2009, Usmanows Metalloinwest Holdings sold the shares in Medusa Mining for about $ 52 million.

information and communication

In August / September 2006 Usmanov entered the Russian media business. First he acquired 100% shares in the Kommersant publishing house with the daily newspaper Kommersant , the weekly magazines Kommersant-Wlast , Dengi and Awtopilot from Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkazishvili . At the end of December, through companies he controlled, he bought the Secret Firmy publishing house , which owns Russia's most widely read Internet newspaper, gaseta.ru .

In 2007, Usmanov entered the telecommunications industry when, in May, he signed a contract with Danish lawyer Jeffrey Peter Galmond to purchase 8% of the mobile operator MegaFon , which belonged to the Bermuda-based fund IPOC, and 58.9% of the holding company Telekominwest (over First National Holding ). In August this was followed by the acquisition of a further 15% of Telekominwest and thus a further 4.7% of MegaFon . In October 2008 Usmanow managed to consolidate 31.1% of MegaFon via Telekominwest , where he now holds 73.9%. This was only made possible after IPOC was liquidated.

In 2008 Usmanov tried to buy into the Russian-Dutch Internet service provider Yandex . But the project failed due to the resistance of the shareholders. Over the next few years he acquired shares in the Odnoklassniki.ru social network , ICQ messaging service and Mail.Ru Internet portal . Usmanov also owned the Russian e-recruiting service HeadHunter , which he sold for 10 billion rubles in 2016. Since September 2014, he has been the owner of vk.com , a social network with over 100 million active, mostly Russian-speaking users.

In 2009, Usmanow began, together with his partner Juri Milner and his investment company Digital Sky Technologies (DST), to buy and partially sell the shares of Facebook , Twitter , Groupon , Zynga , Airbnb and Apple . Usmanow and Milner generated around 1.6 billion dollars in 2012 with Facebook shares alone. Chinese companies also piqued Usmanov's interest, and he invested in Alibaba Group , JD.com, and Xiaomi . Investments in the Chinese internet market made up 70-80% of all foreign internet investments by USM Holdings.

The list of industries in which Alisher Usmanov successfully invested grew longer. The online scoreboard “Yula” was launched on the Internet portal Mail.ru, and in 2016 Usmanov invested in delivery services: he bought 100% of the shares in Delivery Club from the German company Rocket Internet .

USM

In 2012 Usmanow founded USM Holdings , which now bundled Metalloinwest , MegaFon , Skartel , Mail.Ru Group as well as the television channels Disney Russia , MUZ-TW and JU . Usmanow held 60% of the holding's shares. In 2018 the company was renamed USM . The shareholders are now Usmanow with 49%, Skotsch with 30%, Moshiri with 8% and the general director of USM Management Ivan Streschinski with 3%; Usmanow reserved 10% for himself in order to hand this over to the heads of the holding company in the future. USM is the acronym of Usmanov-Skotsch-Moshiri.

USM invested tens of millions of dollars in the American service company Uber in the summer of 2015 .

capital

In 2011, the Russian financial magazine Finans ranked Usmanov in third place in Russia with a sum of 19.9 billion dollars. In 2011, Usmanov also ranked 35th in Forbes' list of the richest people in the world with a fortune of 17.7 billion dollars.

In 2012, Bloomberg publisher estimated Usmanov's fortune at $ 20 billion and named him the richest man in Russia. In 2013, Bloomberg Markets magazine ranked Usmanow among the five most influential entrepreneurs in the world.

According to the Forbes 2015 list, his net worth was approximately $ 14.4 billion. He was ranked 71st of the richest people in the world. He owned $ 12.5 billion in 2016 and $ 15.2 billion in 2017, according to Forbes. In November 2019, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index rated Usmanov's fortune at $ 15.9 billion. According to the latest Forbes rating on April 7, 2020, his net worth was $ 13.4 billion. He ranks seventh among the richest entrepreneurs in Russia.

Usmanow also owns numerous properties, including in Russia, Uzbekistan, Great Britain (a villa in London and the Tudor mansion "Sutton Place" in Surrey), Germany (on Lake Tegernsee ) and Italy (a villa in Porto Cervo ). Together with his wife and stepson, Usmanow acquired a piece of land in the Latvian seaside resort of Jūrmala in 2014 for 3.9 million euros . He is the owner of a jet and a yacht named after his parents: "Bourkhan" and "Dilbar".

Succession planning

Since Usmanov's marriage remained childless, his favorite nephew Babur Usmanov, son of Usmanov's brother Bachodir, was considered his sole heir for a long time. But on May 10, 2013, Babur, who lived most of the time in Switzerland with his wife Dijor, niece of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev , and daughter, died at the age of 29 in a car accident in central Tashkent. After Babur's death, Usmanov left five nephews and nieces who could be possible heirs: Gulnora Usmanova (Babur's sister), a graduate of Global Business & Design Management at Regent's University London and an Uzbek It girl who has been with the Uzbek tennis player Vaja Uzakov is married; four children of Usmanov's youngest sister - Sandzhan and Sarvar Ismailov, Nasiba and Asal Narciyeva.

When asked about the succession of his USM empire during an interview with the Financial Times , Usmanov replied that he planned to select half of his family shares (he named three of his twelve grandchildren: Jasmin, Alischer and Usman) and the other half Leaving behind managers who have shown themselves to be meritorious.

politics

In parallel to his successes in business, Usmanov tried his hand at the political field. In December 1993 he was nominated for the upcoming State Duma elections as a member of the Khanty and Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Usmanov and his electoral association “Civil Union in the Name of Stability, Justice and Order”, which included him as a candidate on their list, failed, however, at the five percent hurdle.

Usmanov as a sports official

Usmanov is committed to the development of sport in Russia and internationally. He was a member of the council for the preparation and implementation of the XXII. Winter Olympics and XI. Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympic Games .

fencing

Usmanov, already president of the Russian Fencing Federation , hit the headlines when he was elected President of the European Fencing Federation (EFC / CEE) in July 2005. Usmanov, who used to be a saber fencer himself, won against the President of the English Federation, Keith Smith, after the former President, Jenö Kamuti (Hungary) no longer ran. In January 2009 he replaced René Roch as President of the World Fencing Federation FIE .

In the same year he founded the foundation "For the future of fencing". The foundation gives prize money to those athletes who get the best places in the fencing world championships. In 2020, Forbes ranked the foundation 15th among the charitable foundations of the richest Russian entrepreneurs.

Since 2009 Usmanov, in his capacity as FIE President, has also been a member of the Council of the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport. His wife Irina Viner-Usmanova is also a member of the council.

In 2013, Usmanov announced that he would suspend a million dollar prize money at the fencing world championships as a measure to modernize the sport of fencing. The sum is to be divided into twelve competitions: three types of weapons each for both sexes and in individual and team combat.

As ( FIE ) President Alischer Usmanov campaigned for the fencing program for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo to include a full contingent of medals. This decision, which means that fencing will be completely equal for men and women for the first time at the Olympic Games, was announced by the Olympic Committee in 2017.

Usmanov's investments in fencing are likely to amount to over 70 million euros in 2020, according to projections by the “Inside The Games” portal. In addition to promoting the athletes, Usmanow was also concerned with the internal and external impact of the association. For the 105th anniversary of the fencing association, he made a cruise possible on the Seine (cost: over 5 million euros) and engaged musical greats such as Sting and Robbie Williams for other matters .

Alisher Usmanow has been a member of the FIE Hall of Fame since 2008. On December 5th, 2019, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of this organization in the “Fencing Family” category, following the decision of the Russian Fencing Association.

Soccer

In August 2007, Usmanov and his business partner Farhard Moshiri took over 14.65% of the English soccer club Arsenal FC for £ 75 million from former Vice President David Dein, with the plan to achieve a controlling stake of 25%. The takeover took place through the company Red and White Holding, which was founded especially for this purpose . In September Usmanov increased his stake in the club to 21% and 23% respectively.

In the end, the ownership shares of the football club were almost completely divided between Usmanow and the American E. Stanley Kroenke . There was already a conflict between the two at the beginning of the planned cooperation because both had different views on the future of the football club. While Kroenke and the directors' association have so far refused to make certain investments such as transfers of millions and thus a controlled team development was impossible, Usmanow wanted to gradually enable this.

Usmanov later formulated the problem in a subsequently published letter to the club's board of directors. In it he criticized the previous financial policy and identified this as the cause of past bad investments as well as persistent financial problems. Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger was also critical of this development: “English football is in danger of losing its soul” because “we used to have owners who were fans. Today the owners are businessmen. "

After they were able to take over the shares in David Deins, Usmanow and Moshiri put him in charge of their investment firm Red and White Holding . According to his own statement, Usmanov has long felt connected to the English football club - Arsenal FC, London. When he was also offered to buy various shares in Manchester United FC, it led to a dilemma. For Usmanov, that would have meant contradicting his fan culture, although it would have been an investment that had to be reconsidered. In the end, he chose Arsenal ⎼ as a fan and entrepreneur.

In March 2016, Red and White Holding acquired another block of shares and thus held a total of 30.04% of Arsenal shares. In order to be able to advance the club in its work, Usmanow wanted to make further investments, but was left out by the directors and the majority shareholder Kroenke. With the resignation of coach Arsène Wenger, Usmanow also decided to leave the club and sell his shares. He hadn't managed to steer Arsenal into new directions. When Arsène Wenger resigned as a coach in 2018, Usmanow sold his stake in Kroenke and also left the club.

How difficult it was for fans to sell Usmanov's shares in the football club to Stanley Kroenke was discussed extensively in the English press. The Arsenal Supporters Trust even called the transition of the shares "Dreadful day for Arsenal Football Club"

Further support services in sport

From 2008 to 2009 "Metalloinvest Holding" was the main sponsor of Dynamo Moscow. The leading Russian newspaper “Vedomosti” wrote that Usmanov, a long-time fan of the club, decided in this way to save him in a difficult financial situation. Usmanow has been supporting the first division club from St. Petersburg, Club Zenit, since 2012. In 2013 the club received 334 million rubles through "Metalloinvest". In 2015, Usmanov donated 1 billion rubles to the Russian Football Association . In 2019 he supported the Russian football club "Arsenal" from Tula with 600 million rubles.

In 2017, Usmanov acquired a stake in the Tashkent football club Pachtakor .

2020 installed Usmanov his nephew Sarwar Ismailov as a sports and economic director of the women's team of Everton . Ismailov previously worked as a Global Partnership Consultant at the Goodison Park football stadium in Everton .

Usmanov as a patron

Charity and Foundation "Art, Science and Sport"

In 2006, Alisher Usmanov founded the Art, Science and Sport Foundation for his charity initiatives. The foundation supports a number of Russian cultural institutions, including the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the Sovremennik Theater in Moscow, the Tretyakov Gallery , the orchestra of the Russian National Philharmonic by Vladimir Spiwakow and the state-academic folk dance ensemble “ Igor Moiseyev ”. In addition, the foundation donates the necessary funds to a large number of museums. This includes u. a. the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art , the Multimedia Art Museum Moscow , the Peterhof Palace Museum and the Lermontov State Museum -Tarkhany.

In September 2007, the day before the auction started, Usmanov bought the art collection of the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya from Sotheby’s for around 100 million dollars . As the auction house explained, the Rostropovich collection with its 450 selected works of art is "one of the most remarkable collections that Sotheby's has ever traded, and at the same time one of the most important collections of Russian art in private hands". Usmanov wants to donate the collection to the Russian state, which is to exhibit it in the Pushkin Museum . Together with the virtually simultaneous acquisition of the Rostropovich collection and the purchase of 547 Soviet cartoons for around 10 million dollars, which Usmanov donated to the Russian state children's program “Bibigon”, the previously secretive oligarch drew the public's attention.

Alisher Usmanov has twice donated large sums to construction projects in the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan . In 2012, he provided 250 million rubles for the construction of the White Mosque in Bolgar . In 2016 Usmanov donated 500 million rubles for the establishment of the Bolgar Islamic Academy. The building of the educational institution was commissioned by the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia , the Russian Mufti-Council and the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan .

On June 21, 2013, the “Art, Science and Sport” charity donated a 1908 piano from the St. Petersburg company “ Jakob Becker ” to the Moscow Conservatory . According to the Rector of the Conservatory, this was a gift from the Russian patron Alisher Usmanov. The unique piano is of high museum and artistic value and probably belonged to one of the daughters of Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck .

When American biochemist James Watson auctioned his Nobel Prize medal in 2014, Usmanov bought it for $ 4.8 million and gave it back to the scientist shortly afterwards. This happened against the background that Watson wanted to use the sales proceeds to generate funds for research projects and the expansion of his laboratory. Usmanov argued, however, that no scientist should have to give up such an award, (only) to be able to keep funds free.

In March 2019, Usmanov donated US $ 50 million to the Uzbek government for the development of his home province of Namangan as part of the "Exemplary designed village" (usb. "Obod Qishloq") construction funding program. With Usmanow's support, an international business center and business school are to be opened in the city of Namangan .

In October 2019 the Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky presented his film “Sünde” (“Il Peccato” or “Sin”) about the Renaissance artist Michelangelo . The budget of around 15 million euros was largely provided by private sponsors, including Alisher Usmanov and his charity foundation “Art, Science and Sport”. Usmanov is named as a film producer in the filmographic information. In an interview Konchalovsky stated that he was very fortunate that he could rely on Usmanov's support, equated his patronage with that of Lorenzo il Magnifico and was disinterested in the remark that Usmanov had "no clean slate ". He "takes money from anyone who has the courage to support a project like" Sin "".

As of 2020, Usmanov has donated more than $ 2.6 billion to charitable causes.

In December 2019, Usmanow bought the 14-page manuscript of the French nobleman Baron de Coubertin , who wrote down his ideas for reviving the Olympic Games, at Sotheby's in New York for $ 8,806,500 . Usmanov made the manuscript available to the International Olympic Committee in February 2020 for display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne . Ten days before the auction, Usmanov wrote a letter to the World Anti-Doping Agency asking for Russian athletes to compete under their national flag. This happened against the background of the pending judgment of the arbitration court in Lausanne.

Promotion of art at home and abroad

The Art, Science and Sport Foundation established by Usmanov organized exhibitions of Russian art abroad. At the same time, it engages in the loan and purchase of non-Russian works of art and makes them available to a broad public in the context of existing and newly designed exhibitions. In 2008, an exhibition of the works of the British artist William Turner was organized, whose paintings were shown in Russia for the first time since 1975. The special exhibition took place in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

In 2013, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Tate Britain , and the Art, Science and Sport Charity Foundation presented the first major exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, "Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-garde". The Moscow show included over 80 Paintings and arts and crafts from British and American museums and private collections, including gemstones from the Tate collection - “ Ophelia ” and “Mariana” by John Everett Millais , “Proserpine” and “The Beloved” (“The Bride”) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti .

Also in 2013, the Usmanow Foundation presented the painting “The Evangelist Markus” by the Dutch artist Frans Hals to the Pushkin Museum . The piece was acquired by the Foundation after it was previously owned by Johnny Van Haften's London gallery , which specializes in 17th century Dutch art . The painting belonged to the Russian Empire in the 19th century and was considered lost after the Crimean War (1853–1856). The press described this gift as Russia's greatest art acquisition in the past 100 years.

In 2016, Usmanov's Foundation organized the exhibition of works of art from the Vatican Pinakotek "Roma Aeterna" in Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery . The special thing about it was that up to this point in time such a large number of paintings had never left the Pinakotek to be shown abroad. "We are convinced that in a world that is increasingly polarized and torn by conflict, art, especially on religious issues, gives us hope," said Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello , President of the Vatican City State Government , who came to Moscow for this reason . In 2018, the opposite path was chosen. The “Art, Culture and Sport” foundation brought the exhibition “The Russian Way. From Dionysus to Malevich ”to the Vatican City.

The link with Italy is also strengthened through other Foundation activities. She participates z. B. in the preservation and restoration of architectural monuments in Russia and abroad. The Dioscuri Fountain and the Trajan's Forum in the old town of Rome as well as the building of the Italian embassy (Villa Berg in Moscow) in Russia were restored with their funds . For this Usmanov received the medal "For the services to the Italian state".

ART-OKNO culture platform

One of Usmanov's charity projects is the creation of the ART-OKNO cultural platform in 2017, which supports the development of small towns in the Belgorod , Kursk and Orenburg areas through the formation of urban communities and the implementation of cultural projects. The focus is on the cities of Stary Oskol , Gubkin , Schelesnogorsk and Novotroitsk .

Since the outbreak of the Corona crisis , the cultural platform's projects have focused on online formats. One example is the organization of webinar series on the topics of project management and design, as well as master classes by well-known Russian music and art professionals for talented young performers.

Support for the visually impaired

In addition to cultural and sporting formats, the “Art, Science and Sport” foundation also supports rehabilitation centers for visually impaired children and young people. In addition, the foundation helps these children and young people to receive adequate training and further education so that they can later take up a career. The aim of the project is to offer visually impaired people opportunities and solutions for their self-realization and successful integration into society.

As part of the project to promote visually impaired people, Alisher Usmanov also paid for the first surgery carried out in Russia to implant   a so-called "epiretinal eye chip". Behind this technical term there is a kind of bionic eye that is supposed to restore sight to the blind. Special glasses with an integrated video camera send images to a chip that is attached to the retina. This chip stimulates the still healthy nerve cells in the inner retina . The procedure has already been carried out around 140 times worldwide. For those affected, the bionic eye is a significant relief. However, they cannot (currently) regain their full vision. With Usmanov's support, production companies develop theater productions and film transmissions with television commentary for a blind audience ( audio description ). A specially trained speaker explains the presentations during the broadcast. With the support of the Foundation, such performances are taking place in various cities in Russia.

After Usmanov survived a retinal detachment in mid-2000 , he had two eye clinics built in Munich and Moscow and a large medical complex in his home town of Tashkent.

Contribution to the fight against COVID-19

At the beginning of April 2020, Alisher Usmanov donated US $ 20 million to the “Charity and Health” foundation in Uzbekistan for the fight against the coronavirus . In the same month, Uzbekistan received an additional US $ 5 million in support of the fight against the crisis caused by the virus, while Usmanov withdrew to his villa in Tashkent.

In the course of the corona crisis, Alisher Usmanov was honored together with Jack Dorsey and Bill Gates in the ranking of the top 3 greatest philanthropists in the world. In May 2020, the English daily newspaper "Sunday Times" named Usmanov as the greatest benefactor among the participants in the rich list ranking to fight COVID-19. For example, the billionaire's donations for these purposes totaled US $ 126 million in Russia and US $ 25 million in Uzbekistan. The funds were used to buy personal protective equipment for doctors and volunteers and to provide financial support for medical staff.

Awards

International awards

• Dostyk Order Class KlasseI (Kazakhstan, 2011)
• Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Italy, October 10, 2016) - for his contribution to Russian-Italian relations and as a tribute to his participation in the restoration projects of Villa Berg in Moscow (building of the Italian Embassy in Russia since 1924), the Capitoline Museums , the Dioscuri Fountain and the Trajan's Forum in Rome
• Order of the Dostyk , class І (Kazakhstan, 2018)
• Order "El-Yurt-Churmati" ("To the person honored by the people and nation") (Uzbekistan, 29 August 2018)

Awards of the Russian Federation

• Duslyk Order of the Republic of Tatarstan (тат. Дуслык, Friendship) (2018)
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland Class III (2018)
• "Al-Fahr-Order" Class I (November 4, 2016) - awarded by the Russian Muftiad for the great contribution to the promotion of Islam in the Russian Federation
• State Badge "For Charity" (June 11, 2016)
• Alexander Nevsky Order (2014)
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland Class IV (July 6, 2013)
• Badge of Honor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation "For Contribution to International Cooperation" (2013)
• Thank you letter from the President of the Russian Federation (December 24, 2009)
• Certificate of Honor of the President of the Russian Federation (September 8, 2008)
• Order of Honor (March 17, 2004)

Points of contention, criticism and media turmoil

Conjecture about Usmanov's connections to the KGB

After graduation, Usmanov held the post of general director within the Committee for Defense of Peace in Tashkent. The Guardian adds that this is a piquant detail as the committee is supposedly a front organization of the KGB. However, that could never be proven. Instead, the Guardian quoted Usmanov himself, who denied a connection to the KGB because of his work for the committee.

In addition, according to The Guardian , Bachadyr Nasymov, who was indicted together with Usmanov in 1980, was not only the son of the head of the regional KGB, but also KGB officials. According to Usmanov, he had drawn him into the power struggles of the KGB. According to The Guardian, another indication of Usmanov's connections to members of the Soviet secret service is the fact that Yevgeny Maximowitsch Primakov , head of the KGB's foreign intelligence department, was one of his friends . Usmanov denied all allegations about his connections to the KGB or other Russian or Uzbek intelligence agencies and accused The Guardian of trying to portray any Russian acquaintance with a KGB official as a criminal.

The example of the MAPO bank, in which Usmanov and the KGB officer Yevgeny Ananyev sat on the board in the 1990s, shows the involvement of Russian officials with criminal organizations. Usmanov met Yevgeny Ananyev, according to press reports, as early as the late 1980s, when the budding oligarch was busy organizing hunts for the Pamir fauna for rich foreigners. During this time, a foreign secret service member tried to recruit Usmanov. Usmanov reported this to the Uzbek KGB and in this way met Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Ananyev. Ananyev subsequently became Usmanov's business partner. With his support, Usmanow later organized his company Agroplast for the production of plastic bags in Ramenskoye.

Reports and speculation about links to organized crime

There were repeated reports in the Russian press about Usmanov's connections to the criminal world. For example, in June 1998 the journalist Valeri Lunew wrote in the Russian newspaper " Zawtra " that Usmanov encountered certain inconveniences after his six years in prison, as his "former 'prison buddies" began to ruthlessly exploit the intelligent Uzbeks in the field of certain financial transactions ". Among other things, Usmanov was appointed to the board of directors of the Pervyj Russkij nezavisimyj bank (registered on May 25, 1992). The bank soon granted substantial loans to an “interested” company that bought foreign currencies and transferred them abroad, where the money trail was inevitably lost.

After his release from prison, Usmanov had also had contacts with the Armenian Vatschagan Petrosov and Vyacheslav Ivankov (alias: Japontschik). Petrosov was a so-called "thief in the law" (Russian вор в законе) and a central figure in the criminal underworld of the Soviet Union, who emigrated to the USA and became the leader of the Russian mafia in Denver , while Ivankov was one of the most important figures in organized crime Russia advanced. According to an FBI report, Petrosov was allegedly the "strategic advisor" to Ivankov and was involved with him in drug trafficking and extortion cases. The FBI officials also found that Petrosov was the director of Interkross , a Moscow company that earned its income from imports of cigarettes for the American company RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. and from the manufacture and sale of polyester products. Most of the cigarette trade in Russia was nothing but untaxed smuggling, dominated by the mafia. The FBI document goes on to state that Petrosov was only able to stay in this type of business because he made payments to a people's representative within the Russian government and other politicians who allowed his shadowy business to run. This is an abundant indication that Usmanov, who is known to be the first deputy general director of Interkross between 1990 and 1994 , had organized his trade in plastic bags and cigarettes of the “Magna” brand (manufacturer RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.) with the help of the Russian mafia.

According to press reports, contacts between Usmanov and the bosses of the Russian mafia in New York ( Brooklyn Group) and the leaders of the Chechen mafia "Obschtschina" (including Khodsch-Akhmed Tashtamirovich Nuchayev, alias: Khodja) are said to have existed in the 1990s to have.

The Guardian researched that accusations had surfaced in the media over the years that Usmanov was a businessman who did his business in a rather unlawful way and had connections with Russian and Uzbek criminals, in particular Gafur Rahimov , who repeatedly worked as an Uzbek mafia boss who specialized in organized drug production in Central Asia and managed international drug syndicates. In the past, Usmanov had admitted that he had known Rahimov for 20 years and that he had spoken to him about the allegations regarding the heroin trafficking, to which he replied that all of the allegations were untrue. Usmanov only knew him because he was his parents' neighbor. He has not had any business relations with him up to the present. Litvinenko made a file on Gafur Rahimov, which is in the archives of the American historian Yuri Felschtinsky . This shows that Usmanov was not just an acquaintance of Rahimov, but one of his confidants in Moscow, a "major financier fraud" and the "center of thought" of Rahimov. In addition, Usmanov and Rakhimov were involved in the criminal business of Uzbek and Chechen criminal groups when they founded the Aeroport bank in 1993 for the purpose of money laundering.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former employee of the 7th FSB department (Office for the Development and Prevention of the Activities of Criminal Organizations), gathered information about the activities of the Uzbek mafia in Moscow in the 1990s and found that their contacts reached the highest levels of the Russian Public servants were enough. Sergei Yastrschembski - Usmanov's friend and secretary under Yeltsin and Putin - received bribes from Gafur Rachimov, for which he had a dacha built in Moscow's Sokolinaja gora district. The bribe was said to have flowed through Rahimov's confidant Alisher Usmanov.

According to intelligence information, Usmanov's friends included Yastrschembski, the influential Major General Yevgeny Grigoryevich Chocholkow, head of the 7th FSB department, and Andrei Afanasyevich Kokoschin, former deputy minister of defense and secretary in the Security Council of the Russian Federation . In addition, through Usmanov's wife Irina Viner-Usmanova, trainer of the Russian national team for rhythmic gymnastics, there were connections to Shamil Anvyarovich Tarpishchev , the former adviser to the Russian president on sports issues, and Boris Viktorovich Ivanyushenkov, Minister of Sports and Tourism. Both had access to the Russian mafia. Tarpishchev had a close relationship with the “thief in the law” Alimzhan Tursunowitsch Tochtachunov (code name: Taiwantschik), while the politician Ivanyushenkow (code name: Ratan) was a leading member of a criminal organization in Podolsk that had been involved in extortion , drug trafficking and car pushing. According to Litvinenko, the FSB boss Khokholkov and the Uzbek-born gangster Tochtachunov attended the same school in Tashkent. Litvinenko presented all this information to Vladimir Putin in 1998 after he was appointed director of the FSB on July 25, 1998. At a face-to-face meeting, he showed Putin a large map showing all criminal structures known to Litvinenko with connections to corrupt state institutions (such as the Ministry of the Interior, FSB and the tax police) and to commercial enterprises through which the mafia money was laundered. And he gave him all the information about the Uzbek mafia, which lists all mafia "branches" in Russia, the USA and Afghanistan, as well as contacts to FSB generals and other people at the management level in the Ministry of the Interior who were involved in drug deals. Putin was particularly interested in the information about Yastrschembsky and later made him his secretary. Putin did not take any further steps to combat criminal structures and corruption within the Russian state system.

Other reports in the Russian press about the links between the Mafia, state authorities and Usmanov also referred to investigating officials. So, at least in the 1990s, one of the most important components of Usmanov's success was the support from the FSB. Without the protection of the Russian secret service, Usmanov would not have been able to found or manage a number of financial and commercial companies , for example the financial and industrial group "AtomRudMet", whose "financial brain" was Usmanov, the ZAO "Interfinservice" "MAPO-Bank", the joint venture "Interkross", the founders of which were among other things well-known Mafia authorities, the Uzbek-Belgian joint venture "VITA", the "Pervyj Torgowyj Bank" (German: Erste Handelsbank ) and the Perwyj Russkij nezavisimyj bank . Both of the latter banks started their work at the end of May 1992 and then disappeared almost simultaneously with the money from their customers. At the end of the 1990s, Usmanov had achieved a solid position in the business world and from then on did not do any risky business. Organized crime established itself in the legal business and has since used it for money laundering and subsequent investments in large projects (e.g. in oil and gas companies and arms exports ).

According to the US Treasury Department , Usmanov's long-time friend and business partner ( Interfin , USM, etc.) Andrei Skotsch, a Duma member since 1999, has long-term ties with Russian organized crime groups. For example, in 2012 Skotsch told the Financial Times that in the 1990s he negotiated oil deals with two men whom the FBI counts as leaders of the Solnzewo Brotherhood . The Guardian also published a photo, taken in 1994, in 2012 of Skotsch alongside Sergei Mikhailov (code name: Michas) and Viktor Aveverin (code name: Avera), the most notorious gangsters in post-Soviet Russia and bosses of the Solnzewo Brotherhood. Leonid Roitman, a former member of the Magadan Brigade, named after the leader Oleg Asmakov (alias: Magadan), confirmed in an interview with the Russian-American journalist Seva Kaplan in 2019 that Skotsch had always been a Solnzewo leader and remains to this day is. Skotsch began his criminal activity in Moscow together with Oleg Asmakov. Skotsch fulfilled the function of coordinator within the Solnzewo Brotherhood and gave, among other things, the orders for contract killings. For example, he showed his subordinates how to dispose of corpses by burning them. Today, according to Roitman, he has more influence in the Bratwa than Mikhailov. Roitman also confirmed that Alisher Usmanov's business operations will continue to be under the protection of Skotsch and his Solnzewskaya group, as well as Lev Kvetnoi and Oleg Ibragimovich Sheikhametov. Usmanov, known in criminal circles under his code name Uzbeke, was a gel washer and banker of the Solnzewskaja group in the early 1990s and is still in close contact with the leading representatives of the Russian mafia.

All these remarks point to the judgment that the British journalist Luke Harding came to after examining the cables of US embassies published by WikiLeaks in 2010 , namely that "Russia, like a cancerous tumor, has transformed itself into a brutal, autocratic kleptocracy, whose center is Putin's overwhelming rule and in which officials, oligarchs and mafia bosses are firmly integrated in order to create a “virtual mafia state” ”.

Dispute over Russian diamonds: De Beers vs. Lukoil

The multi-billion dollar Oppenheim family behind Anglo-American diamond company and mining giant De Beers filed a lawsuit against Russia's largest oil producer Lukoil in 2001 , demanding $ 4.8 billion in damages .

At that time, Nicky Oppenheimer was the sole shareholder and most important donor of the Vancouver- based Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC). 1993 closed ADC into an agreement concerning a license to exploration and insight of diamond deposits in the Timan - Pechora region of Arkhangelsk Oblast with the state-owned enterprises Archangelskgeologija , which was founded in 1932 under a different name on behalf of the Soviet government. In 1994, Oppenheimers ADC and Archangelskgeologija agreed that ADC would provide additional funding while the license was transferred to the joint venture under the name Almazny bereg . However, the license was never transferred, but remained with Arkhangelskgeologija . In 1995 the Russian state company was privatized and renamed Arkhangelskgeologdobytscha (AGD). The license was transferred to AGD. During this period, the Alfa Group and MAPO-Bank , where Usmanov was Deputy Chairman between 1995 and 1997, were interested in AGD because they had the valuable license to mine diamonds. Therefore, companies controlled by Usmanow, including MAPO-Bank and Interfin , acquired shares in AGD. Usmanov was a member of the AGD's Board of Directors between 1997 and 2001. In 1996, ADC discovered a vast diamond deposit within the licensed region, valued at approximately $ 5 billion. As agreed, ADC then requested that the license be transferred to the joint venture. Usmanov replied that AGD was about to restructure and that the prospecting license would then be handed over to the new company and not to the Almazny joint venture . The ADC was offered a 5% stake in the new company, which the Canadian company declined. In 1997, AGD's executive suite decided to terminate the contract with ADC.

For the next several years, AGD swayed between promising and refusing to transfer the license, resulting in ADC losing their investments, expected profits, and ultimately bankruptcy . In 1997, ADC moved its headquarters to Colorado , but continued to be a Canadian company. In 1998 Lukoil initially acquired a controlling stake in AGD through companies that were under Usmanov's control (above all VA Investment LLC , where Lukoil boss Wagit Alekperow also owned shares) and finally, through the purchase of a block of shares belonging to the American oil company Conoco , acquired in 2000 or 2001 complete control, so that AGD became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lukoil . In August 1998 ADC initiated arbitration proceedings in Stockholm against AGD and Lukoil . However, in July 1999, AGD and ADC agreed that AGD would transfer their license to the Almazny bereg joint venture . However, AGD did not stick to the agreement, which is why ADC reactivated the Stockholm arbitration. In November 2001, Lukoil filed a lawsuit with the Arkhangelsk Regional Court with the aim of annulling the international arbitration provisions in the joint venture agreement. Because the Swedish arbitrators ruled that they were not responsible for this dispute, ADC took its complaint to the Colorado Federal District Court in November 2001 . In its complaint, ADC accused AGD, Lukoil and especially Usmanov of fraud, conspiracy, willful breach of contractual obligations and unjust enrichment.

Usmanov appears in the court records as the mastermind behind the takeover of the former state-owned company by AGD, later Lukoil. The indictment alleged that Usmanov and his partners refused to comply with agreements regarding the transfer of the diamond mining license to ADC and that their aim was to oust ADC from Russia and claim the diamond project for themselves. Usmanov stated in 2001 that he was no longer involved as the AGD shares were sold to Lukoil. It was only after 15 years that the American court dismissed De Beers and Archangel Diamond Corporation's lawsuit against Lukoil in November 2016 .

Criticism and media turmoil from Great Britain

In 1999 there were press reports alleging that the UK law enforcement agency, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, was monitoring Usmanov for alleged links with organized crime suspects. This happened at a time when Usmanov was a business partner of Lord Owen , former party leader of the British SDP and British Foreign Secretary. Usmanow and Owen both served on the board of Middlesex Holdings plc , which was renamed Global Natural Energy plc in 2002 due to restructuring .

The British Telegraph writes that the statement about the prosecution was imaginary. In fact, it is a common form of corporate culture in Russia to maintain contacts in various circles without being involved in their business.

Craig Murray

When Usmanov acquired shares in London's Arsenal FC in 2007, there were many reports, including critical ones, in the British press. The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, contributed primarily to this . He posted a post about Usmanov on his blog on September 2, 2007, describing him as a “shameful villain, criminal, heroin smuggler and accused rapist” who was “in no way a political prisoner” but “a gangster and blackmailer who rightly spent six years in prison ”. Usmanov's early release from custody was owed to Islom Karimov , who was finance minister and deputy head of government of the Uzbek SSR until 1986 and the first president of Uzbekistan since 1991. For his part, Karimov is said to have ordered the pardon due to his connection to Usmanov's mentor, the boss of the Uzbek mafia and the leading international drug baron Gafur Rahimov . Usmanov's criminal connections to one of the most corrupt regimes in the world (Uzbekistan) have got him out of prison, according to Murray. Usmanov then plunged into the privatization process that gripped the collapsing Soviet Union, at a time when “physical control of assets was ensured by the criminal force” and “the alliance between the Russian mafia and the Russian security authorities was developing ". The friendship between the oligarch and Vladimir Putin was made possible by Sergei Yastrschembski, Usmanov's college friend and Putin's long-time advisor and head of cabinet . Through his position within Gazprom , Usmanov supported Putin's attacks against democracy and freedom of the press. On behalf of Putin, the gas giant bought up national and regional television stations, several radio stations and newspaper publishers, who are now indulging in “slavish glorification” of Putin in their reporting. After Usmanov's private purchase of Kommersant , the editor-in-chief was replaced by a Putin-friendly journalist. Three months later, journalist Ivan Safronov mysteriously fell out of the window and died.

Since Murray never produced any evidence to support his allegations, all allegations remain in the room as such.

Leaning on Murray's allegations, British politician and Member of the European Parliament Tom Wise made similar derogatory comments about Usmanov during a parliamentary debate on September 25, 2007.

Usmanov responded to all of this by writing through the British law firm Schillings, which runs to the web host Fasthosts Internet Ltd. threatened legal consequences, had Murray's website blocked. This led to massive protests, first in the blogosphere, as other blogs were also affected by the blockage, including that of the future British Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Boris Johnson . Johnson told The Guardian that he was indignant about Usmanov's approach: “That's London and not Uzbekistan!” As a result, British politicians ( Tom Watson , Iain Dale) intervened and the media reported.

The Times wrote that Usmanov has not brought a lawsuit against Craig Murray's statements. According to the Uzbek human rights activist Yevgeny Djakonov, Usmanov will never initiate legal proceedings against Murray, because Murray himself was the one who, as the British consul in Uzbekistan, collected information about Uzmanov and sent it to the relevant authorities in Great Britain between 2002 and 2004. If these classified documents are disclosed in the course of a court case, there would be a huge scandal. Usmanov wouldn't risk that.

Craig Murray also accused Usmanov of corruption because in 2004, through Gazprominvestholding, as the responsible director, he bribed Gulnora Karimova , daughter of Uzbek President Islom Karimov, so that Uzbekistan's natural gas reserves were transferred to Gazprom . Karimova received a total of $ 88 million in bribes for this, with the prospect of further payments for the export of natural gas. Usmanov even bribed Putin in the form of 40% MAPO Bank shares by handing over the shares through Usmanov's former fellow students and Putin's secretary Yastrschembski. Meanwhile, according to the Reuters news agency, it is believed that Usmanov under Karimov had no ties to the Uzbek authorities.

Arsenal FC

Due to the serving sentence in the 1980s, the board of directors of Arsenal FC hired a private detective to investigate the oligarch's past in 2009 . He even traveled to Tashkent, where Usmanov spent six years in prison, to research the details of his conviction and subsequent annulment by Russian and Uzbek courts. However, given the cover-up tactics used by the Uzbek authorities, the investigation did not come to a conclusion. The subsequent allegation is that this was due to a cover-up tactic by the Uzbek authorities; however, this could neither be proven nor otherwise proven. In return, Usmanov asked the board of directors to disclose whether club shareholders' funds had been spent on this investigation.

The Times

Another scandal arose when The Times reported on November 12, 2012 that Usmanov had helped London PR agency RLM Finsbury with the revision of the English Wikipedia article about him and the removal of all comments on allegations regarding his criminal past and others had commissioned critical comments. Finsbury apologized for the changes but noted that this was not commissioned by Usmanov.

Allegations of influencing "Kommersant"

The business newspaper " Kommersant ", founded during the Soviet era, was known for a long time for independent journalism critical of the government.

Various reports have been made about Usmanov's possible influence on the newspaper "Kommersant". For example, an article in the German newspaper "Die Welt" reveals the following:

Since the economically liberal daily newspaper became the property of Alisher Usmanov's media holding company in 2006, it has lost some of its reputation. At that time, the newspaper itself wrote that by taking over Kommersant, Usmanov was carrying out an order from the Kremlin. The Panorama Foundation is also convinced that Usmanov acquired the business paper either on direct instructions from the Kremlin or at least in consultation with him. It was assumed that this was based on the Kremlin's strategy of handing over some of the media control to the Russian billionaires so that they can ensure that content complies with the government. So it was possible for the Russian rulers to appear abroad with a rich media landscape in private hands. In July 2010, the longtime editor-in-chief of “Kommersant” Andrei Vasilyev was forced to resign from his post because of influence from the Kremlin. The Russian state power is getting closer and closer to the "direct control of the press", according to Wassiljew, because the information flows are very strictly regulated and filtered. He spoke of increasing media manipulation . So he could no longer work professionally.

In return, Vasilyev replied to the liberal radio station “Echo Moscow” that for him the work, first under Berezovskij and later under Usmanov, was always a personal balancing act, as both represent very different political positions. For the "Kommersant", however, according to his statement, there has never been a situation in which the newspaper has acted contrary to its principles.

In March 2019 the "Kommersant" author Maria Karpenko was fired because of her critical article about the St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglow. In May 2019 the correspondents Ivan Safronov and Maxim Ivanov had to vacate their posts after the publication of an article about the chairwoman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko because they had apparently violated the journalistic standards of the "Kommersant". But the journalists were then asked by the editor-in-chief to disclose their sources, as errors were suspected in the course of the work. Usmanov, for his part, denied the allegation of interference. The expulsion of the colleagues caused the entire politics department of the "Kommersant" - that was more than 220 employees - to leave the newspaper in protest.

Data leak: Panama and Paradise Papers

In the course of the publication of the Panama Papers in April 2016, the Süddeutsche Zeitung named Usmanov, close to the Kremlin, as a shareholder in several offshore companies, who also bought several critical newspapers and brought them into line with the Russian government. Usmanov's attorney noted that Usmanov's name was mentioned in the Panama Papers, saying that the "main operating companies" were registered in Russia and that foreign companies were being used "on a very limited basis" and "in strict compliance with" legal requirements. The complexity and opaqueness of the companies controlled by Usmanov, which emerge from the Panama Papers, is illustrated by the database of offshore leaks. This shows the connections between the individual letterbox companies (ABU Group Ltd., Brenson Holding Ltd., Hovigton Enterprises Ltd., Ocean Breeze Estates Ltd., Swinstar Holdings Ltd.). In addition, it is shown that Usmanows Hovigton through the mediation of the service provider Bridgewaters (IOM) Ltd. registered to Vladimir Skotsch, the father of his friend Andrei Skotsch, between 2011 and 2015. The Hovigton company is interesting because it is the shareholder of Gallagher Holdings Ltd., registered in Cyprus . (Usmanov's other friend, Farhard Moshiri, owned 10% shares in Gallagher ), which later became Usmanov's steel empire USM Steel & Mining Group Ltd. emerged.

Usmanov's name also appears in the Paradise Papers published in November 2017 . The research of the Süddeutsche Zeitung led to the well-founded suspicion that Usmanow, as a co-owner of the British Arsenal FC, could also have influence on another British top division club, FC Everton , of which 49.9% has belonged to the British businessman and Usmanov's friend Farhad Moshiri since February 2016 . The Süddeutsche showed that Usmanow bought 14.6% of the Arsenal shares in 2007 for 110 million euros through the Jersey-based company Red & White Holdings. Because Moshiri owned half of the holding's shares for a time, he was also the owner of the Arsenal shares. Over time they increased to 30%. In February 2016, Moshiri sold his shares to Usmanov for around 190 million euros, so that he now owned 30% of Arsenal. At the same time, Moshiri acquired 49.9% of Everton FC for 116 million euros. The suspicion of influencing two football clubs was reinforced by the statement of the Russian-language Internet portal championat.com on February 26, 2016 that Usmanov would now be the new owner of Everton, and the announcement that Usmanov's USM Holding - where Moshiri is on the board of directors with 11% shares - takes over the naming rights for the training grounds of FC Everton in January 2017 for 35 million euros. From the Paradise Papers it can be seen that the business connections between the two shareholders are so diverse and the flows of money so intertwined that Usmanow, according to the Süddeutsche, “(could) have the clout and the wealth of feint, more than just a Premier League Club to influence ". However, this would be a violation of the rules of the Premier League , which prohibits a club owner or director from participating in another club so that the club cannot influence the policies of the other club.

The 13.4 million Paradise Papers evaluated by the ICIJ produced even more information about Usmanov's secret financial transactions. In 2009 Usmanow and his partner Juri Milner acquired shares in Facebook through his company DST . After Facebook went public in 2012, the social network grew in value from $ 6.5 billion to $ 105 billion. Four days after going public, DST sold its block of shares for about $ 1 billion. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, this was a legendary business that was talked about for a long time in Silicon Valley . With the help of the Paradise Papers, the ICIJ found that prior to the share deal, the Facebook shares belonged to an opaque letterbox company Kanton Services from the British Virgin Islands, financed and controlled by Gazprominvestholding (headed by Usmanov). Forensic auditing expert David Zweighaft, who was involved in the evaluation of the Paradise Papers, concluded that the state-owned company Gazprom was, in fact, Canton Services' lender . According to the ICIJ, Gazprom had almost no part in the huge profit from the sale of shares. In order to disguise Gazprom's role , Kanton Services conducted the transactions with subsidiaries of Milners DST . Documents from the Panama Papers published in 2016 show that Canton Services received loans totaling $ 197 million from Gazprominvestholding three months before DST - and thus Usmanow and Milner - bought Facebook. At the request of the ICIJ, Gazprominvestholding announced that the loans were "made available for general corporate purposes". Michael Carpenter, former Russia director in the US National Security Council, disagreed with this when he discovered that the institutions close to the Kremlin make their investments out of strategic and not exclusively commercial interests. When asked by the New York Times , Usmanov's spokesman said that the oligarch did not borrow or use any state or quasi-state funds to make investments. And Yuri Milner told the New York Times that Usmanov had many sources of money, so it was impossible to determine whether money from Gazprominvestholding was used to purchase Facebook shares. As a result, Facebook's Vice President Colin Stretch was quoted at a US Senate hearing in the fall of 2017 to report the extent to which Russia had intervened in the 2016 presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton via social media . In addition, in January 2018 Senator Marco Rubio and three other Republican senators made a formal request to the Trump administration to include Usmanov in the new list of sanctions against Russia as a person close to President Putin. The senators also referred to the billionaire's connections to Russian state funds, which found their way unnoticed as investments into the American social media industry. Usmanov, however, was not sanctioned, unlike his friend and business partner Andrei Skotsch, because the latter has long had ties to organized crime and for a time ran a criminal group himself.

In addition, Usmanow's name appeared in connection with the company Bridgewater or Bridgewaters in the Paradise Papers. The Isle of Man company was mentioned in the Panama Papers and specialized in mailbox companies. The evaluated data indicate that Usmanow could have bought the service provider Bridgewater , which was managed by two Usmanow confidants. One was in charge of several USM subsidiaries, the second of USM's predecessor company. The journalists from Süddeutsche therefore asked themselves whether the oligarch loyal to Putin had direct influence on a mailbox service provider who serves numerous prominent customers from the close circle of the Russian president, such as B. the wife of Putin's press spokesman Dmitri Sergeyevich Peskov . If that were the case, the customers would not be adequately screened and the sanctions against Russia (in connection with the Crimean crisis and Russia's intervention in the US election campaign ) would not apply. Claims that Usmanow owned and that Bridgewater was secretly controlled by someone were rejected by Bridgewater as "false". Usmanov stated that the allegations made are based on untruths.

Allegations from Alexei Navalny

FBK vs. Usmanov / Medvedev

In early March 2017, Usmanov got caught in a sensational corruption scandal after the political activist and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) published the YouTube video " He's not a Dimon for you " about the secret luxury life of Dmitry Medvedev . Accordingly, the oligarch is said to have given a fund close to the Prime Minister a large piece of land in Rublevka , an expensive suburb of Moscow.

Navalny was arrested and sentenced to 15 days' imprisonment for resisting state power and a fine of 20,000 rubles for organizing an unauthorized protest in Moscow.

Answer from Alisher Usmanov

Usmanov previously rejected all allegations of bribery in two video messages from May 18 and 24, 2017, describing Navalny as a "loser" and a "liar". He also accused him of "crossing the red line". Usmanov urged Navalny to “apologize and let each other live in peace”. He stressed that, contrary to Navalny's statement, over the years of running the company he had created 40,000 jobs and invested more than 800 billion rubles in its development. He vehemently denied having received his fortune as a gift in the course of privatization. Instead, Usmanov indicated that the companies in which he invests, such as Megafon , Mail.Ru , Odnoklassniki, VKontakte , are not Soviet companies with which to build such wealth, he said.

Usmanov also denied allegations that he was a criminal trying to cover up his past. He claimed to have spent 6 years in prison through no fault of his own and because of a politically motivated conviction of guilt. He was then fully rehabilitated by the Supreme Court.

Further investigation by the FBK

Navalny then published the film Answer to Alisher Usmanov on his YouTube channel on May 29, 2017 . In it, Navalny goes into detail about how Usmanov was able to become a billionaire, citing annual reports, minutes and other official documents of the British public company Middlesex Holdings plc. He also explains how the large Uzbek entrepreneur managed to privatize state-owned metallurgical companies, make huge profits through letterbox companies and withhold millions of US dollars in taxpayers' money from the Russian treasury .

Usmanov's approach, as Navalny explains in the film, is basically simple: to sell the Russian raw materials cheaply to the offshore companies under its own control so that they can then sell the raw materials around the world at the market price. The expenses (production costs, salaries, etc.) remain with the metallurgical plants in Russia. The profit is low, correspondingly few taxes are paid, which means that the Russian state suffers losses, while the greatest profit from the sale ends up with foreign front companies that pay no or very little taxes and which are also controlled by Usmanov and his partners. According to Navalny, this type of tax evasion is called transfer pricing. At that time (2000–2001, 2002–2008) Dmitry Medvedev was the chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, so that, according to Navalny, Usmanov could steal from Gazprom for years without being prosecuted.

Judgment and withdrawal of allegations by Navalny

On April 12, 2017, Usmanov went to court with a libel suit against Navalny and his anti-corruption foundation FBK. At the end of May the Moscow Lyublinsky Court came to the verdict that Navalny had unjustly spread corruption allegations against Usmanov and thus damaged his “honor, dignity and reputation as a businessman”. The opposition politician was asked to withdraw the allegations against Usmanov and delete the incriminating video. Navalny replied that he would not remove the post.

On August 11, 2017, the Moscow City Court dismissed the FBK's appeal . But instead of the legal requirement to remove the entire film "He's not a Dimon for you", only the Excerpts related to Usmanov should now be removed from the video, to which the FBK lawyers agreed.

Although Navalny published the correction on October 10, 2017, he did not delete the incriminating video as ordered by the court.

literature

• Alischer Usmanow , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 48/2012 from November 27, 2012, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Alischer Usmanow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Usmanov's résumé on lenta.ru
• Via Usmanow on the USM Group website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elene Perotti: Russia: Kremlin creeps closer to media domination? On: Editor's Weblog (published by the World Association of Newspapers ) on September 1, 2006
2. ^ The Guardian: The colorful life of football's latest oligarch , November 19, 2007, accessed May 6, 2020.
3. ↑ ozodlik.org: В Ташкенте в автокатастрофе погиб племянник миллиардера Алишера Усманова , May 9, 2013, accessed May 21, 2020.
4. ↑ Aleksandr Belenkij's blog: Неизвестное детство Алишера Усманова , July 24, 2018, accessed on May 15, 2020.
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7. ↑ «МГИМО. На всех языках мира ». Документальный фильм. Retrieved June 17, 2020 (Russian). 
8. ↑ Алишер Усманов: миллиарды и человеческие отношения | Миллиардеры. April 23, 2012, Retrieved June 17, 2020 (American English). 
9. ↑ Biography on neftegaz.ru: Усманов Алишер Бурханович , accessed on May 6, 2020; dailymail.co.uk: Arsenal's oligarch takes on his friend Abramovich , August 31, 2007, accessed May 8, 2020.
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11. ↑ ^{a b c} Usmanov's biography ( memento of November 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Russian business magazine Ekspert
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13. ↑ Usmanov's curriculum vitae on lenta.ru ; meduza.io: Обвинения Алишера Усманова в изнасиловании: откуда они взялись и как бизнесмен их опровергал , accessed on May 4, 2020 (Russian).
14. ↑ Alexander Litvinenko: File on Gafur Rakhimov , April 1, 2000.
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19. ↑ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/arsenal/article2357823.ece Profile on timesonline.co.uk; Grigori Naberezhnow, Kristina Astafurowa: Усманов раскрыл своих возможных наследников , rbc.ru, January 3, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 (Russian); Biography on svpressa.ru: Алишер Усманов. Бизнесмен и управленец , accessed May 4, 2020 (Russian); dailymail.co.uk: Arsenal's oligarch takes on his friend Abramovich , August 31, 2007, accessed May 9, 2020.
20. ↑ IslamRF.ru: Алишер Усманов: "Чтобы чувствовать себя в гармонии со своей душой - надо находиться в своей вере" ; Jewish Business News: Alisher Usmanov And Irina Viner: The Story Of The Muslim Billionaire And His Jewish Wife , accessed May 5, 2020.
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25. ↑ Алишер Усманов: миллиарды и человеческие отношения | Миллиардеры. Retrieved April 23, 2012, July 31, 2020 (American English). 
26. ↑ Biography on forbes.ru: Алишер Усманов: миллиарды и человеческие отношения , accessed on May 2, 2020.
27. ↑ Encyclopedia article on tass-ru: Усманов, Алишер Бурханович , accessed on May 9, 2020.
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29. ↑ Valeri Lunew: “БРАТКИ” ИДУТ В НЕФТЯНИКИ , newspaper “Zavtra”, No. 23, from June 9, 1998, accessed on May 13, 2020.
30. ^ Henry Foy: Alisher Usmanov: 'I was never what you could call an oligarch' , Financial Times, January 3, 2020, accessed May 15, 2020.
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34. ↑ Biography on finparty.ru: Биография - Усманова Алишера Бурхановича , accessed on May 9, 2020.
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41. ↑ Biography on forbes.ru: Алишер Усманов: миллиарды и человеческие отношения , accessed on May 2, 2020.
42. ↑ Biography on forbes.ru: Алишер Усманов: миллиарды и человеческие отношения , accessed on May 2, 2020.
43. ↑ Andrei Winkow, Dmitri Sivakov: ЖДИТЕ АЛИШЕРА. Алишер Усманов нацелен на создание сырьевой железорудной монополии , Ekspert (archived on scandaly.ru, February 3, 2005, accessed May 19, 2020).
44. ↑ kaze.kz: Усманов хочет объединить железорудные ГОКи РФ, Казахстана и Украины , from May 17, 2005, accessed on May 20, 2020.
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48. ^ Metalloinvest: Metalloinvest Group. A flagship company shaping the development of Russia's mining and steelindustry , Memorandum, October 2006, accessed May 17, 2020.
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50. ↑ Maria Tscherkassowa, Natalja Skorlygina: Алишер Усманов ищет медь в океане. Предприниматель купил 20% акций Nautilus Minerals , Kommersant, No. 207, p. 13, from November 7, 2006, accessed on May 14, 2020.
51. ↑ Moritz Koch: The oceans are the new Wild West. Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 28, 2012, accessed on May 14, 2020.
52. ^ New Europe: Metalloinvest buying 19.9% ​​of Mount Gibson Iron , November 16, 2006, accessed May 17, 2020.
53. ↑ Andrei Zelenin: Золотая Medusa Усманова , Rusmet, from June 29, 2007; Julia Fedorinova: Medusa Усманова , UkrRudProm, from July 2, 2007; MarketScreener: MEDUSA MINING LIMITED (MML) , accessed May 15, 2020.
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55. ↑ polit.ru: Мемория. Алишер Усманов , September 9, 2017, accessed May 9, 2020.
56. ↑ ^{a b} Alisher Usmanov buys Secretary Firmy Auf: Russian-language service of the BBC of December 22, 2006
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62. ↑ Новая игрушка: как Mail.ru Group зарабатывает на сервисе онлайн-объявлений. Retrieved August 4, 2020 (Russian). 
63. ↑ Биография Алишера Бурхановича Усманова - Свободная Пресса - Алишер Усманов: семья, уивлен, фотео, енвлечен - Свободная Пресса. Retrieved August 4, 2020 (Russian). 
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87. ↑ Christoph Becker: The Oligarch's Handwriting , FAZ, from February 12, 2020, accessed on May 17, 2020.
88. ↑ INTERNATIONAL FENCING FEDERATION - The International Fencing Federation official website. Retrieved July 7, 2020 . 
89. ↑ Усманов включен в Зал славы отечественного фехтования. Retrieved July 7, 2020 . 
90. ↑ Elnur Salihovic: Major Players in the Muslim Business World, Boca Raton 2015, p. 67 ( ISBN 978-1-62734-052-6 ).
91. ↑ Usmanov: five things you might not know about UK's richest man. Retrieved July 7, 2020 . 
92. ↑ Russian acquires larger package Usmanov buys Arsenal papers . In: Sportal.de , September 30, 2007. 
93. ↑ Usmanov targets crucial 25% stake in Arsenal . In: Guardian Unlimited . 
94. ↑ Parmy Olson: Usmanov Adds To His Arsenal , forbes.com, September 28, 2007; The Standard: Record sales at Arsenal , as of October 1, 2007; welt.de: Arsenal is also taken over by a Russian from October 3, 2007; Raphael Honigstein: Arsenal takeover. Tradition has a high price , Der Tagesspiegel, October 8, 2007, accessed on May 14, 2020.
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97. ↑ Kommersant: Алишер Усманов интересовался "Манчестер Юнайтед" , No. 181, p. 24, from October 4, 2007, accessed on May 14, 2020.
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130. ↑ Алишер Усманов выделил Узбекистану на борьбу с коронавирусом еще 5 миллионов долларов. Retrieved July 7, 2020 (Russian). 
131. ↑ Новая газета - Novayagazeta.ru. Retrieved July 7, 2020 (Russian). 
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136. ↑ «Металлоинвест»: Алишер Усманов - Основатель Металлоинвест. Retrieved August 16, 2020 . 
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138. ↑ Распоряжение Президента Российской Федерации от 08.09.2008 г. № 524-рп. Retrieved August 16, 2020 (Russian). 
139. ↑ Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 17.03.2004 г. № 365. Retrieved August 16, 2020 (Russian). 
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148. ↑ Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: What is the Brothers' Circle? , dated March 12, 2012, accessed on May 11, 2020.
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150. ↑ Alexander Litvinenko: File on Gafur Rakhimov , April 1, 2000.
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153. ↑ Литвиненко А .: ЛПГ - Лубянская преступная группировка. Офицер ФСБ дает показания, 2002, p. 112 ff, ISBN 0-9723878-0-3 .
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157. ↑ Seva Kaplan's YouTube channel: 5 лет спустя: Леонид Ройтман в Толковище с Севой Капланом. , from March 22, 2019, accessed on May 28, 2020.
158. ↑ Jürgen Roth: Mafialand Germany, Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 288, ISBN 978-3-8218-5632-2 .
159. ^ Luke Harding: Mafia State. How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia, London 2011, p. 235, ISBN 978-0-85265-247-3 .
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176. ↑ Public Service Announcement . In: Chicken Yoghurt , September 20, 2007. 
177. ↑ Bob Piper: Thanks everyone . In: Bob Piper , September 23, 2007. Archived from the original on June 29, 2007. 
178. ^ Bob Piper: Iain Dale: In Support of Tim Ireland and Craig Murray . In: Ian Dale , September 20, 2007. 
179. ^ Tom Watson: Unity is strength . In: Tom Watson MP , September 20, 2007. 
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184. ↑ Dilschod Rachmetow: Узбекский правозащитник: "Алексею Навальному следует задуматься о своей безопасности.org" , accessed on May 22, 2017.
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186. ↑ Craig Murray: Murder in Samarkand. A British Ambassador's controversial defiance of tyranny in the war on terror, London 2006, p. 366, ( ISBN 1-84596-194-3 ).
187. ↑ ИНТЕРВЬЮ-Российский миллиардер Усманов помогает Узбекистану открыться миру . In: Reuters . December 4, 2017 ( reuters.com [accessed August 9, 2020]).
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193. ↑ Дарья Миколайчук: Журналист "Коммерсанта" объяснил, почему отказался раскрывать источники. Retrieved August 4, 2020 . 
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197. ↑ The Moscow Times: Iranian Moshiri Becomes Billionaire Helping Russia's Richest Man , April 12, 2012, accessed May 14, 2020.
198. ↑ Offshore Leaks Database by ICIJ: Vladimir Skoch , accessed on May 14, 2020.
199. ↑ Frederik Obermaier, Ralf Wiegand: A very special friendly game. Two clubs, two billionaires - and one suspicion: How investors could influence English football , Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 5, 2017, accessed on May 5, 2020.
200. ↑ Hannes Munzinger, Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer: #gruesseausmoskau. Kremlin-funded companies invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook and Twitter , Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nov. 5, 2017; Alexei Priwalow: Сам себя пристыдил , Versia, October 2, 2018, accessed May 8, 2020.
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202. ↑ US Department of the Treasury: Treasury Designates Russian Oligarchs, Officials, and Entities in Response to Worldwide Malign Activity , April 6, 2018, accessed May 14, 2020.
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205. ^ A fine and 15 days' arrest for Kremlin critic Navalny. Accessed July 31, 2020 . 
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207. ↑ "Придется ответить, Леша": из-за чего судятся Усманов и Навальный. Retrieved August 9, 2020 . 
208. ↑ "Придется ответить, Леша": из-за чего судятся Усманов и Навальный. Retrieved August 9, 2020 . 
209. ↑ Alexei Navalny's YouTube channel: Ответ Алишеру Усманову , accessed on April 20, 2020 (Russian).
210. ↑ Alexei Navalny's YouTube channel: Ответ Алишеру Усманову , accessed on April 20, 2020 (Russian).
211. ↑ welt.de: Billionaire sues Kremlin critic Navalny for defamation , April 13, 2017, accessed April 19, 2020; Die Zeit: Billionaire sues Putin critic Navalny , from April 13, 2017, accessed on May 1, 2020.
212. ↑ Риа Новости: Придется извиняться: суд удовлетворил иск Усманова к Навальному . June 1, 2017 ( ria.ru [accessed November 13, 2017]).
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214. ↑ ФБК написал опровержение на обвинения в коррупции в адрес Усманова. Accessed July 31, 2020 .