Russia’s richest man may have avoided freeze on £1bn Tui shares

theguardian.com:

The Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov may have avoided a freeze on a £1bn shareholding in Tui, the world’s biggest tourism company, after selling most of his 34% stake to a British Virgin Islands company.

Russia’s richest man had become the single largest shareholder in Tui, which has dual stock market listings in Frankfurt and London, after stepping in to keep it afloat during the pandemic. He resigned from the Tui board on 2 March, two days after being blacklisted by the EU. The UK government imposed sanctions on him on Tuesday.

Mordashov was among the first oligarchstargeted, with the EU citing his investments in Rossiya bank, described as the “personal bank” of Russia’s senior officials, and his stakes in television stations that had played a role in destabilising Ukraine through pro-Russia broadcasts.

Last Friday Tui announced in a regulatory filing and press release that Mordashov had sold 29.9% ofhis Tui shareholding to Ondero Ltd, based in the British Virgin Islands. The shares are worth £1.1bn at today’s prices. Tui said the remaining 4.1% had been sold to the businessman’s Russian investment vehicle, Severgroup. Tui said the transfers had been made four days earlier, on 28 February – the day Modashov was named on the EU sanctions list.

Under sanctions rules, Mordashov’s entire holding in Tui would have been frozen, which would have meant he could not sell his shares, collect dividends, vote at board meetings or profit from the stake in any other way.

However, Tui has confirmed that only the small portion held by Severgroup, worth £155m, was frozen. The firm said it did not know who the owners of Ondero were, or whether its 29.9% stake had been frozen under the sanctions regime.

A Tui spokesperson said: “We cannot