[imagesource: Anna Gordon / FT]

It’s not a great time to be a Russian oligarch.

Hang on. Everyone, bust out the world’s smallest violin. I’d say it’s a worse time to be a regular Ukrainian citizen.

Mikhail Fridman, pictured above, is being hit hard by sanctions imposed by the EU this week. He has stepped down from London-based investment group LetterOne and agreed to have no further involvement in the business.

Together with fellow Russian Petr Aven, Fridman owns just shy of 50% of the group. Their stakes will be “frozen”, meaning they cannot be sold while they’re under sanction, and the new board has “no obligation to give their shareholder rights back once the sanctions lift”.

FT reports that staff at LetterOne “have been told not to talk to the pair, who have been cut off from its buildings along with any access to documents”.

Also in the firing line is Fridman’s five-acre property in London, Athlone House, situated in the Highgate area favoured by the super-rich.

Below via The Telegraph:

First built in the mid-1880s for Edward Brooke, an MP and chemist, Athlone House has been home to some of the most influential industrialists in British corporate history. It was later bought by Francis Reckitt, son of entrepreneur Isaac Reckitt, the founder of what has now become blue-chip giant Reckitt Benckiser.

Ukrainian-born Fridman, who declined to comment, previously said it “felt like fate” that he was drawn to the same Victorian grandeur that had inspired fellow industrialists. But as Russian tanks and soldiers pile into Ukraine, the dream of residing in London’s society might come crashing down.

Fridman bought the property for £65 million (around R1,3 billion at today’s exchange rate) in 2016.

Having it frozen will hurt, sure, but his net worth according to Forbes still sits at around $15,5 billion.

Compared to Alisher Usmanov, Fridman may be getting off lightly.

Usmanov, a fellow Russian multi-billionaire, has had his $600 million (around R9,2 billion) superyacht seized by German authorities at the Hamburg shipyard.

The 156-metre yacht Dilbar, is regarded as the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage, reports The Guardian:

Usmanov bought Dilbar [below] in 2016 for a reported cost of $600m from German shipbuilder Lürssen, which custom-built it for him over 52 months.

The firm calls it “one of the most complex and challenging yachts ever built, in terms of both dimensions and technology.”

At the time of its launch, Lürssen CEO Peter Lürssen said: “Dilbar has the most advanced security technologies of any superyacht in the world. But the things you read about it containing an anti-aircraft missile defence system are all nonsense.”

In hindsight, that may have been an oversight.

When fully operational, Dilbar is usually staffed by 96 crew and can sleep 24 passengers in 12 luxury suites.

Naturally, it has the largest pool ever installed on a yacht, two helicopter pads, a sauna, a beauty salon, and a gym.

In order to avoid something similar, Russian superyacht owners are now flocking to the Maldives because it doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US.

Forbes puts Usmanov’s net worth at around the $14 billion mark. My sympathies are limited.

Roman Abramovich has confirmed that he is selling Chelsea Football Club, no doubt feeling the pinch as the UK hands out sanctions.

He has not yet been named on any lists but is offloading London properties in anticipation.

As much as the screws are being tightened, reports CNN, nothing is ever straightforward with the mega-rich and their money:

“If you’re a Russian oligarch floating on your yacht in Indian Ocean, most of your money’s already going to not be in your own name,” said Alison Jimenez, president of litigation consulting firm Dynamic Securities Analytics. “You’re going to have the opaque layering of shell corporations with dummy people standing in for you.”

That may take some of the punitive bite from the Western sanctions. “You can seize the boat, you can seize the plane, but they have money stashed all over the globe,” Jimenez says. “If you manage to capture 75% of it, they’re still going to be more wealthy than everyone else in the world.”

If you manage to capture 1% of it you’re going to be richer than almost everyone.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian residents live in fear as their cities are rocked by explosions and ordinary citizens take up arms.

You can follow live updates from Ukraine via CNN and the BBC.

[sources:ft&telegraph&guardian&cnn]