Abramovich could face US sanctions after hedge fund links revealed
US authorities appear closer to adding Roman Abramovich to their list of sanctioned hyper-rich Russians, after reports surfaced of a complex transaction of funds through a US hedge fund that was linked to the UK- and European-sanctioned owner of Chelsea football club.
Abramovich, reputedly the one-time steward on Boris Yeltsin’s plane, and tapped by the then up-and-coming Vladimir Putin to manage Russian state-owned energy assets, was reported bythe New York Times on Monday to be behind a $20m transfer from a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands to an investment vehicle in the Cayman Islands controlled by a US hedge fund.
According to the newspaper, the singular transfer was the culmination of months of work by “a small army of handlers and enablers in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean” that may have placed billions of dollars of Abramovich’s fortune with prominent US hedge funds and private equity firms.
“In some cases, participants weren’t even aware of whose money they were helping to manage,” the Times reported.
The transaction was organized by Concord Management, a US investment consultancy in White Plains, New York, that has been named as a vehicle through which the 55-year-old Abramovich may have invested $1.3bn with US financiers, including Empyrean Capital Partners in Los Angeles, Millstreet Capital Management in Boston, Millennium Management, Sarissa Capital Management and Sculptor Capital Management.
Concord executive Michael Matlin issued a statement that described the firm as “a consulting firm that provides independent third-party research, due diligence and monitoring of investments”.
The report comes days after a red flag alert was issued by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement
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