Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev transferred RussNeft stake to his brother prior to sanctions
Russneft founder Mikhail Gutseriev, who recently came under EU and UK sanctions, transferred his 37.15 percent stake in the oil company to his younger brother Sait-Salam Gutseriev back in June.
According to a company press release, the transfer took place on June 10 — about ten days before the European Union imposed sanctions on the Russian billionaire over his close ties to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Gutseriev quit the Russneft board of directors just days after the sanctions were announced.
Based on the price of Russneft shares on the Moscow Exchange on the evening of August 10, the transferred stake in the company is worth about 16.7 billion rubles, the equivalent of $227 million.
The UK announced personal sanctions against Gutseriev over his connections to Lukashenko on August 9, the anniversary of the allegedly fraudulent presidential election in Belarus that sparked massive opposition protests last year.
In July, Kommersant reported that Mikhail Gutseriev had handed over control of another one of his key oil assets, the company Neftisa, to his brother. He remains a minority shareholder with a seven percent stake.
Just days earlier, Sait-Salam Gutseriev gained control over the British firm GCM Global Energy — the shareholder of Mikhail Gutseriev’s Slavkali company, which is building a potash fertilizer plant in Belarus.
In the spring of 2021, Forbes estimated Mikhail Gutseriev’s wealth at $2.5 billion. At the time, his assets included a 68 percent stake in Neftisa and a 25 percent stake in Russneft (he later obtained another 12 percent stake from his son; this consolidated package of Russneft shares was transferred to his brother).
Gutseriev founded Russneft in 2002 and it is now the seventh largest oil company in Russia in terms of production. The company produced 6.4 million tons of oil in 2020.
