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"Abramovich transferred company to associate on day Russia invaded Ukraine
Russian businessman Roman Abramovich transferred a company he controlled with tens of millions of dollars in investments to a director of Chelsea football club on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, new corporate filings show.

A Reuters analysis of corporate filings in London and Amsterdam showed Mr Abramovich was previously listed as the "beneficial owner" of Cyprus-based Ervington Investments Limited. The company has made investments in at least eight firms, including in Russia's top search engine Yandex, the filings showed.

On 24 February, Eugene Tenenbaum, a director of Chelsea who is described on the club website as one of Abramovich's "closest associates", took full control of Ervington.

Mr Tenebaum told Reuters he purchased the company "in compliance with laws and regulations" - but declined to say how much he paid.

It is the second time the Chelsea owner moved assets to a close associate before the UK and EU imposed sanctions on him.

Also on the first day of the attack he moved Norma Investments to David Davidovich, another associate.

The UK has been slower to impose sanctions following the 24 February invasion, which critics say gave oligarchs time to move their assets out of the country before curbs were announced, with them coming into force on 10 March.

Mr Abramovich put reigning European champions Chelsea up for sale on 2 March, but following the sanctions announcement, the club was made to operate under a special licence and is now effectively controlled by the government.

The 55-year-old is one of Russia's most powerful entrepreneurs, with his wealth coming from oil and aluminium following the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union.

His net worth is estimated at more than $13 billion (£9.91 billion). He has previously denied having close links to Putin."

RA does, however, seem to have left his holding in Evraz as is. My theory is that he will transfer out assets to a phoenix and, therefore, does not need to worry about the Evraz shares. We shall see...

Hi JA,

Sorry, I have no idea.

The company's registrar appears to be Computershare. They are headquartered in Dublin, but have offices both onshore and offshore.

https://www.computershare.com/uk/our-locations

They would be the only ones that know for certain.

JA - I don't think the company need to ringfence RAs shares. Because RA is sanctioned, no broker would execute a trade on his account and the company's registrar would not process the change of ownership. You have to flag the accounts of sanctioned people and go through Compliance departments before you can do anything to them.

Hi jotom750,

I was referring to the damage done to the company's shares in the market place. No tracker funds need to hold and there aren't sufficient brokers willing to make a market in the shares. I'm not talking about demand for products; it's demand for stocks and shares that has been damaged.

The company should be going full tilt to seek revocation of the accusations levelled at it, if they aren't true. It doesn't seem to be. It has the resources to throw absolutely everything at restoring it's reputation in the market and what does it do? Starts a petition...

Sorry, but that's not good enough. A petition is something you start when you're not happy about the council's efforts with the local Christmas tree in the town square. It's not something you do in an attempt to clear your name when you're a company which has, until recently, been worth billions.

I'd like to see some positive steps from the directors. The only concrete step we've seen is the tsunami of resignations that followed the initial denials. That says it all really. The petition, to me at least, is salt in the wound. I'd rather see legal threats against false allegations but I suspect we'll be waiting a long time for that, if they ever come.

Not happy and not signing silly petition. It's a bit patronising IMHO.

This smells too much of desperation to me so won't be participating.

I would like to see some acknowledgement of the damage and losses to the company, not just investors. Surely reputational damage and loss of goodwill to the company should be at the forefront of the minds of directors. What can they do about that, I wonder.

Davidspellacy - I'd be interested to know why Evraz would be affected by the broker issue to the extent that the stock is suspended. Other Russian stocks excluded from the indices (Poly) have not been affected to that extent.

Personally I think it would be good if VP nationalised Evraz's Russian assets and promised RA he could have them when the dust settles.

Then, maybe, RA & Co would leave Evraz alone with the remaining assets. That's got to be better than shareholders getting shafted for absolutely everything.

May I add that the plane is made of mostly Russian components, but we knew that when we bought our tickets.

If the plane crashes and burns the owner will want the wreckage back once the bodies of the passengers have been removed. He's fairly sure he can build a new plane from it. That plane will also be flown by Russian pilots and made mostly of Russian components so warn your friends and family about getting on those planes.

Let's hope the FCA can slow down this plane crash down long enough for a decent plan to be put together.

Having said all that we may land safely, collect our luggage and head home with a terrifying story to tell.

All IMHO and DYOR. Make your own mind up on how this journey will end. FYI I've already said my goodbyes to the wife and accepted the inevitable.

Yeah, pretty dark for a Tuesday. I know.

I wish I could agree with you. However, you can't look at RAs holding in isolation. There is a concert party and RA heads it up. RA is not a minority non controlling holder like us.

There has been no talk of lawsuits, or even news of mild discontent, from fund managers about the FCA decision to suspend. I suspect a few of them complained that they had no choice but to hold Russian companies because they were tracking an index. That may explain why Poly and some others were removed yesterday. But there has been no sign of fund managers looking to reverse the FCAs decision to suspend Evraz.

Sorry, I don't mean to p155 on anyone's fire but we just need to wait and see which way this goes. The suspension may be lifted (at some point) or it may morph into a delisting. If it is delisted then there are various outcomes.

That's as much as we know right now. We can take a stab at the best and worse case scenario but we don't know which way this will go or when that might happen.

We are effectively witnessing a plane crash in slow motion. We are the passengers and we don't know how it's going to turn out for us yet. However, we can see that the co-pilots (NEDS) have already bailed out to safety which isn't a good sign. We're on our own in the plane with a Russian pilot at the controls.

RA in Moscow now.

https://news.sky.com/story/roman-abramovich-spotted-at-israeli-airport-as-jet-linked-to-him-flies-to-istanbul-and-eu-agrees-to-impose-sanctions-on-chelsea-owner-12565984

The point around the ability to make decisions does not go away because his close associates have stepped down as directors.

If you are a major shareholder you have the ability to put forward resolutions. Those resolutions are then voted on. If you have enough votes, either alone or in concert with others, then you can pass the resolution.

That is the problem IMHO.

RA was conducting a fire sale when he found out he would be sanctioned. He moved his yacht, the lot. One thing he didn't do was sell his shares in Evraz.

Now, why did he not get rid of one of his more liquid assets? Probably because he needed to retain his voting power going forward.

Why would he care about the votes more than the value of the shares? Probably because the value is in the company and the share price doesn't matter to him.

I suspect that when, not if, Evraz delist from the LSE, the company will issue resolutions to transfer assets to newly formed companies owned by RA & Co. As minority holders we will of course vote against these resolutions but that won't matter.

Votes matter and RA and his comrades have the bulk of them. It's their company and we're going to accept that we don't have the votes to stop them.

Now, the big question is, can the FCA do anything to protect us shareholders, like it said it was doing by suspending the shares. Or did the FCA actually mean it was suspending the shares to protect new investors from buying I to this nightmare.

Please ignore this end of a bell.

He/she was on the RR bb a few months back claiming that it was going to fall to 50p. Then he miraculously disappeared... until now that is.

He/she's just here to get a rise out of people. Please ignore the posts.

The Russians are just wasting everyone's time pretending to be constructively engaging in peace talk. It's a dirty tactic designed to win time and destroy morale.

The reality is that Russian are replacing local mayors with new ones, who are bizzarly then claiming they were elected (by who and when?).

VP will not stop until he's replaced the president of Ukraine. He knows the president won't capitulate so the capital will be attacked regardless of whatever pretences are going on with these talks. The Russian objective has not been met and that was, and still is, to have their own people in charge of the country. It's an invasion which is far from over.

Read updates after 14.00 today

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-russia-news-putin-nuclear-live-updates-kyiv-12541713

Officemanager - I only have time to read what you post, and you posted about supplying Russian companies.

Let's not place any comparison between "FFS" on a bb and a full blown military invasion. I didn't mean to cause you any offence.

I generally find your posts insightful and look forward to reading them going forward.

K3ysersoze - thanks for pointing that out, you are completely correct. My apologies.

Both elements of the statement appear to be based on circumstantial evidence at this time. Let's wait and see why they believed they could make those claims.

Office manager - we're not talking about Evraz supplying Russian companies. It's the Russia military FFS.

Massive Ray - they have to prove that Evraz supplied the Russian military. They don't have to prove that the Russian military used it to make tanks. That bit is covered by usi g the word "may".

The statement was that Evraz supplied steel to the Russian military, that may have been used to produce tanks.

They KNOW that Evraz supplied the steel to the Russian military. The proposition that the steel may have been used for tank production has not been proven.

However, they will have strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the steel was most probably used to make tanks. For example, the size or specifics of the order from the Russian military may indicate that they wanted the steel for tanks. They then may have evidence that the number of tanks increased proportionally following delivery of the order and those tanks are now in Ukraine.

They can make reasonable assumptions about how the steel was used by the Russian military without having definitive proof, as long as they use the word "may".

JM - I'm not the one who made those statements. It comes from the UK government.

You have a debatable point but that doesn't change the fact that the UK government think Evraz has supplied steel to the Russian military. Monsanto haven't supplied the Russian military with fertiliser, as far as I'm aware.

How can the LSE continue with the listing if this is the view the UK government has of Evraz?