Arsenal billionaire set to quit

Latest reports from the Financial Times suggest that Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov is looking to sell his stake in Arsenal to Stan Kroenke, who is the majority shareholder at the club.

Usmanov had hoped to buy the club from Kroenke but the US sports mogul has refused to engage in takeover talks, the paper said, citing people close to the Russian tycoon. Having grown frustrated Kroenke is unwilling to sell at any price, Usmanov is reportedly ready to sell his 30 per cent stake in the Premier League club. In October last year, Kroenke Sports Enterprise UK (KSE) offered around £525m to buy the 18,695 shares held by Usmanov’s Red and White Securities Limited.

“My interest in Arsenal from the beginning was long term and my intention has always been to buy additional shares should they become available. This I did with the purchase of the stake of my business partner Farhad Moshiri with which I increased my shareholding from 15 per cent to 30 per cent, and also with my proposed offer for the stake of the majority shareholder which valued the club at some £2bn. That offer remains valid today,” Usmanov said.

In May 2017, Usmanov made a $1.3bn (£1bn) offer to buy out his rival shareholder but that was rejected.

As reported by Forbes, in 2017, Alisher Usmanov has an estimated net worth of $15.1 billion The December 2013 Bloomberg Billionaires Index reported an estimated net worth of $19.6 billion, making him the 37th richest person in the world. In May 2014, The Sunday Times listed him as the second richest person in the UK with an estimated fortune of £10.65bn.

Usmanov built his wealth through metal and mining operations, and investments, and is the majority shareholder of Metalloinvest, a Russian industrial conglomerate, which consolidated in 2006 JSC Metalloinvest’s assets (the Mikhailovsky GOK and the Ural Steel) with those of Gazmetall JSC (the Lebedinsky GOK and the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant).

He owns the Kommersant publishing house. He is also a co‑owner of Russia’s second-largest mobile telephone operator, MegaFon, and co-owner of the Mail.ru group, the largest internet company in the Russian-speaking world,[8] which owns stakes in popular web portals like Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte and others.

Usmanov is the largest investor of Digital Sky Technologies (“DST”) funds, and holds shares in a number of international technology companies.

Usmanov is the president of the FIE, the international governing body of fencing, and he has invested in fencing programs and fencing development around the globe. He is also a shareholder in Arsenal F.C.

In February 2008, his Metalloinvest also became sponsor of Dinamo Moscow, a football team in Russia’s capital. His Metalloinvest group’s name replaced the Xerox Corporation’s on its players’ shirts as part of the $7 million deal.

Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan in the provincial town of Chust, but spent his childhood in the capital Tashkent where his father was a state prosecutor. Planning to pursue a career of a diplomat, he later moved to Moscow and joined Moscow State Institute of International Relations from which he graduated in 1976 with a degree in international law.

After graduating, Usmanov returned to Tashkent where he was appointed director of the Foreign Economic Association of the Soviet Peace Committee.

He was arrested and convicted on charges of fraud and ‘theft of socialist property’ in Uzbek SSR in August 1980 and imprisoned for six years of an eight-year sentence. This conviction was vacated in July 2000, 11 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, when it ruled that “the original conviction was unjust, no crime was ever committed, and that the evidence was fabricated.”  There are also allegations, according to former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, that he was also convicted of rape in the same year.  However, the Uzbek government had refuted such conviction ever taking place.

Usmanov, who is Muslim, married Jewish Irina Viner, a top rhythmic gymnastics coach, in 1992. Viner is considered to be close to Putin, having introduced him to former rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Usmanov attended the Academy of Finance to study banking beginning in 1997.Although Usmanov has no biological children, through his wife Irina Viner, Usmanov has a step-son, who has become a real-estate investor, currently constructing 30 real estate projects.

Usmanov is a close friend of Roman Abramovich, who owns Chelsea Football Club (Usmanov has a 30% stake in Arsenal Football club), and the two shared the same circle of friends in Russia (Usmanov even employed Abramovich’s first wife Olga to work for his company).

Usmanov owns the Grade I listed Tudor mansion Sutton Place set in 300 acres (120 hectares) in Surrey, which he bought for £10 million in 2004. In 2012, it was claimed by businessman Boris Berezovsky that Usmanov was given Sutton Place as part of a business deal, a claim that Usmanov denied. In 2008, Usmanov bought Beechwood House, a Grade II listed Regency property in 11 acres (4.5 hectares) of grounds in the London suburb of Highgate from the Qatari sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani for £48 million.  Usmanov also owns a 30-acre property in Moscow and a villa on the Italian island of Sardinia

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