Date: 2025-05-09 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025955
RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS
Roman Abramovich
Roman Abramovich
Original article: https://www.icij.org/investigations/cyprus-confidential/oligarchs-offshore-clients/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Evraz PLC co-owner Entities in the leak:
246 Companies
15 Trusts
European Union - 2022 Offshore providers:
MeritServus
Cypcodirect
About:
Billionaire Roman Abramovich is one of the most high-profile Russian oligarchs and served as governor of the Chukotka region from 2000 to 2008, after rising to the top of the Russian oil sector through the mid-1990s. He owns stakes in Russian steel giant Evraz PLC, which is led by fellow oligarchs Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, and nickel producer Norilsk Nickel. Abramovich received a windfall of $13 billion, according to Forbes, in 2005 when Vladimir Putin’s government reacquired Abramovich’s stake in Sibneft, a large oil company.
Abromovich has long downplayed his relationship to Putin, but the European Union considers him to have “privileged access” to the Russian president and said their connection helped Abramovich to “maintain his considerable wealth,” when leveling sanctions against him in March 2022. Abramovich was also sanctioned by other jurisdictions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including by the United Kingdom, which froze his assets. He was later forced to sell the Chelsea Football Club. The United States seized two of his planes but did not sanction him.
Abramovich holds Russian, Israeli and Portuguese citizenship and owns numerous luxury yachts, planes and properties in the U.S., the U.K., the EU and offshore. A 2023 investigation by ICIJ partners, based on leaked files from Cyprus-based financial services firm MeritServus, revealed the scale of Abramovich’s nearly $1 billion art collection, which includes works by Russian, European and American masters and celebrated British contemporary artists and others. ICIJ previously showed how an apartment Putin reportedly bought for his high school teacher in Tel Aviv, Israel, was paid for through a Cyprus-based shell company controlled by Abramovich, according to financial records. ICIJ’s FinCEN Files investigation showed that Abramovich spent $100 million to anonymously bankroll a controversial Israeli settler organization operating in East Jerusalem and that he had secret stakes in football players from rival clubs while he owned Chelsea F.C.
Cyprus connections:
ICIJ’s Cyprus Confidential investigation highlights Abramovich’s decades-long relationship with Cypriot financial service providers, which played a key role in helping him manage his assets offshore and to move billions into European economies. Leaked documents connect Abramovich to 261 companies and trusts in Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Jersey and other secrecy jurisdictions. MeritServus, which administered many of the companies, was sanctioned by the U.K. in April 2023 after its work with the oligarch and others was widely reported, including by ICIJ. Another provider in the leak, Cypcodirect, named him a high-risk client
The leak reveals additional details about the transfer of Evraz shares. On Feb. 15, 2022, just nine days before Russia invaded Ukraine, more than $1.7 billion worth of shares from Evraz were transferred from Abramovich’s BVI-based company Greenleas International Holdings Ltd. to himself.
In the same week, Abramovich sold shares in Yandex N.V., a Russian tech company registered in the Netherlands, worth more than $61 million from Greenleas International Holdings Ltd. to Matteson Overseas Ltd., a company owned by Valeriy Oyf, Abramovich's close business associate. The leaked documents show a separate sale of Yandex shares worth more than $180 million took place between another of Abramovich’s companies, Ervington Investments Ltd., and Matteson Overseas around the same time.
Cyprus Confidential also reveals that Abramovich wielded significantly more influence in European professional football than was previously known.
An investigation by ICIJ partners NRC, Trouw and Het Financieele Dagblad reveals how Dutch bank ING helped Abramovich build his financial empire over 15 years — starting with an influx of billions from the sale of Sibneft into various accounts.
Number of companies and trusts in the leak:
ICIJ’s analysis found that MeritServus helped administer at least 14 Cyprus-registered trusts owned or controlled by Abramovich. MeritServus and another firm, Cypcodirect, also provided services to 246 of Abramovich’s companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions including the Isle of Man, Jersey and the British Virgin Islands.
Response:
Abramovich did not respond to ICIJ’s request for comment. Evraz referred ICIJ to regulatory news published on its website.
Oyf confirmed to ICIJ by email that Matteson Overseas purchased shares in Yandex from Greenleas at market value for commercial reasons and that the total value of the purchase was $61.2 million, as Cyprus Confidential documents state. But he claimed that Matteson Overseas’ purchase of shares in Yandex from Ervington Investments “did not happen.”
ING did not respond substantively to questions from ICIJ’s partners, saying that customer relationships are confidential.