The career of Roman Abramovich had a rocky beginning. The college dropout and former Red Army conscript began trading rubber ducks, car tires, and dolls after moving on from a short stint as a mechanic.
He found himself in the right place at the right time. It was the late 1980s, and the Soviet leader was trying to transfer power from the state-run corporations of old to the private sector through reforms that would transform the country's economy and political machinery.
One of Russia's richest tycoons is worth an estimated 14 billion dollars today, thanks to the foresight of Abramovich.
He told The Guardian that money can't buy you happiness, but that it can give you some independence.
For nearly two decades, he has owned the top-flight London soccer team, the Chelsea Football Club.
He is also known for his extravagance. He had a UK property portfolio that was worth an estimated 250 million pounds, or about $325 million. He has two of the world's most expensive superyachts, the $600 million Solaris and the $700 million Eclipse. He has a number of private jets, as well as a helicopter and a number of luxury cars.
He contends that his story is unique to Russia.
There have been two occurrences that have enhanced the public profile of Abramovich. The European Union and the UK imposed sanctions on him after Russia invaded Ukraine. While Western officials were seizing his trophy assets, he acted as an envoy in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, which brought him some positive press.
The occurrences encapsulated the confused thinking around the man. Is he a good guy, a regular Russian who made it big? Is he one of the bad guys, a run-of-the-mill businessman who got lucky with perestroika and was only too happy to cozy up to Putin?
On October 24, 1966, Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich was born in Saratov, a port on the Volga River in southwest Russia. His mother died of blood poisoning at the age of 2 and his father was killed in a construction-crane accident. Komi, in northern Russia, was where he spent most of his childhood.
In 2006 he told The Guardian that he could not call his childhood bad. You can't tell the difference as a child.
The UK says he is a citizen of Russia, Portugal, and Israel. He has been married and divorced three times and fathered seven children. He does not give many interviews.
He was the governor of Chukotka in eastern Russia in the 2000s. He spent eight years there bankrolling schools and hospitals with his own money and set up a charity that took Chukotka's children on annual vacations. He made a $30 million donation to Tel Aviv University, which used to build the Roman Abramovich Building. He is the second largest donor to the museum.
In 1995 he bought a Russian state-owned energy company for $250 million. The auction was rigged in favor ofAbramovich. He sold his energy group to a Russian state-owned group for nearly $13 billion, an investment gain of 5,000%.
This led to a court battle with his former business partner. In the UK, Berezovsky sued Abramovich for intimidating him into selling his stock for less than its true value. In 2012 the court ruled in favor of Abramovich, with the judge saying she found him to be a reliable witness.
The claims that he amassed his wealth through crime are baseless. In 2012 a UK court found that he made corrupt payments in the run-up to the deal.
The death of Berezovsky was1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556 The UK coroner concluded that he was unable to say whether the man had killed himself.
The acquisition of holdings in Norilsk nickel and the industrial conglomerate by Abramovich was made after the deal for the Sibneft meg-deal was done. The London Stock Exchange halted trading in both companies.
In 2003 the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska bought a 25% stake in the aluminum company Rusal. The year before that, Abramovich also bought a soccer team.
He told the Financial Times at the time that he didn't look at it as a financial investment.
In a later interview with Forbes, he said that he might have thought differently about owning a club.
After the start of the Ukraine war, Roman Abramovich announced that he was going to sell his soccer team.
Western officials say that in 2000 Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as the president of Russia.
EU officials say that Abramovich has privileged access to the president, and that he has a good relationship with him. They say that Putin gave preferential treatment to Abramovich and his businesses, including tax breaks, favorable rates when buying and selling shares in state-owned companies, and grants related to the World Cup in Russia.
Abramovich has denied having close personal ties with the Russian president.
In recent weeks, Abramovich was photographed at peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and has traveled across the country to meet with officials. In late March, it is said that Abramovich met with Putin and delivered a note from Zelenskyy seeking peace.
If that is what he is, his role as peace envoy has not been determined. Both Russia and Ukraine have said thatAbramovich is not an official member of their negotiation teams.
His role as a middleman seems to have given him time with the US. Washington officials told The Wall Street Journal that Zelenskyy told Joe Biden that he could be useful in Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
The Kremlin said in late March that Roman Abramovich was involved in enabling certain contacts between the Russian and Ukrainian sides. Zelenskyy said that Abramovich tried to help with peace talks.
The former rubber-duck trader has enjoyed a lot of success. Will the West strip him of his wealth, however earned, and bring about his downfall?
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