Alisher Usmanov: Oligarch says he ditched mansions before sanctions
Alisher Usmanov put luxury homes into trusts, raising questions about whether sanctions will work.www.bbc.co.uk
Who really owns Sutton Place?
Tracing the ownership of the two houses targeted by the UK government is extremely difficult. They have been held through a complex web of trusts and companies registered in places like the British Virgin Islands, which have until recently not required the ultimate owner to be disclosed. This illustrates the difficulty investigators will have in working out which assets should be subject to sanctions.
Despite offshore secrecy the BBC has been able to identify two trusts that have owned the properties, and the involvement of one of Mr Usmanov’s closest business associates.
They involve a long-time associate of Mr Usmanov, Farhad Moshiri, the owner of Everton football club, who is not subject to sanctions. He’s a shareholder in Mr Usmanov’s company USM, which sponsored Everton until the club terminated the relationship in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.
Leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other corporate records show Mr Moshiri was the shareholder of a company in the British Virgin Islands called Coney Holdings Limited.
Until 2014 it owned the shares of the corporate trustees of the Sutton Place Property Unit Trust, which owns the Surrey Mansion, drawing a direct link between Mr Moshiri and the house.
After Sutton Place Property Unit Trust was set up in 2005, Mr Usmanov was given a £6m loan facility secured against the trust.
Mr Usmanov was also the beneficiary of the Pauillac Trust, the owner of Hanley Limited, the Isle of Man company that owns Beechwood, the other property targeted by the government.
Once again, Mr Moshiri was involved, this time as a director of Pauillac Properties Limited, a company owned by the trust, that held shares in Hanley Limited.
Mr Usmanov declined to respond to questions about his relationship with the two trusts, or whether he had ceased to have a beneficial interest in them. While the evidence confirms he was once involved, exactly who stands behind the two trusts now, and therefore owns the properties, is a mystery.
A spokesman for Mr Moshiri told the BBC that he “ceased to be a director of Pauillac in 2016” and that Mr Moshiri “has never been nor is he now involved in the management and/or control of the Sutton Place Property Unit Trust”.
Two other properties link Usmanov and Moshiri
Mr Moshiri owns another property identified by our investigation.
Mr Usmanov bought a luxury property in north London for £15.8m in 2011.
In 2014 Russia invaded Crimea. In March that year Western sanctions targeting those closest to President Putin were imposed, and calls were made for Mr Usmanov’s UK assets to be frozen.
A month later shares in the company that owned the property, Oakhill Avenue Limited, were transferred to a company owned by Mr Moshiri, for what his spokesman said was "north of £18m."
He told the BBC Oakhill Avenue "is 100% owned by Mr Moshiri and has been since 2014 when Mr Moshiri acquired the house."
He said “Neither Mr Usmanov, nor any entities related to him, have any current connection to the house or indeed the company that owns the house.”
But that’s not the only property Mr Moshiri obtained from Mr Usmanov.
In 2004 Mr Usmanov had bought another property in north London for £2 million.
Five years later the property, on Tercelet Terrace in Hampstead, was transferred to Mr Moshiri “not for money”.
In June 2010, it was transferred, again “not for money”, this time to Mr Moshiri’s sister.
It’s not the first time Mr Moshiri has faced questions over his complex financial relationship with Mr Usmanov, such as his investments in Arsenal and Everton FC.]
Asked why Mr Usmanov had handed the property to Mr Moshiri “not for money” Mr Moshiri’s spokesman declined to comment.
and at the centre of that front page article is a big picture of this happy chappy
