Left with few choices, he also sold off a soccer team at a major loss last week. Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich, one of the most high-profile Russian oligarchs, will sell off his stake in a European telecom company for just £1—the equivalent of one US dollar, for an investment that was worth half a billion dollars before the oligarch faced stringent Western sanctions thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s instigation of the war in Ukraine. The news that Abramovich will sell the company that he and two business partners once invested as much as $375 million (about £300 million) in comes in a report from the UK paper The Times, just a week after the British government okayed a deal for Abramovich to sell the Chelsea Football Club, one of the Premiere League’s top teams and one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, for $5 billion. In both cases, Abramovich will see little, if any, profit from the sales, with any possible financial upside for him being frozen until he is no longer sanctioned. In the case of the telecom company, Truphone, Abramovich will be allowed to recoup up to one-third of his original investment, but he won’t receive any of it as long as he remains under sanctions. With the sale of Chelsea F.C., to an investor consortium led by Todd Boehly, an American investment banker who is also a part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the $3 billion that Abramovich invested in the team will be placed in a special fund the U.K. government can use to benefit victims of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The remaining $2 billion will be invested in the team, leaving Abramovich with nothing.
via mother jones: A Russian Billionaire Is Selling his $500 Million Company for $1 After Ukraine Sanctions