Russian oligarch Friedman promised Spain investments in exchange for support for the lifting of sanctions
Russian oligarch Mykhailo Fridman appealed to the Spanish government to support his exclusion from the EU sanctions list, promising to invest in the country’s economy in exchange. This was reported by El Mundo with reference to the billionaire’s letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain.
Friedman is the main shareholder of the Luxembourg-registered investment fund LetterOne, which controls the Spanish supermarket chain Dia. In his letter, he notes that this chain has more than 2,300 stores, provides an economic effect of 6.8 billion euros and creates jobs for about 100,000 people.
He promises that after the lifting of sanctions, he will be able to return to managing the group, which will be an “important guarantee” implementation of the five-year strategic plan. This plan envisages the opening of 300 new Dia stores and annual investments at the level of around 180 million euros until 2029.
Friedman has already managed to get the support of the governments of Hungary, Slovakia and Luxembourg to remove him from the sanctions list. Italy, Greece, Austria and Croatia are also positive about it. At the same time, Latvia is categorically against it, which points to his connection with the co-founder of “Alfa Group” Petro Aven, who is under sanctions.
Due to the sanctions, the Luxembourg holding LetterOne cannot pay about $300 million in dividends to its co-owners, Russian businessmen Mykhailo Fridman and Peter Aven. The company was founded in 2013 by Fridman, Avien, Herman Khan and Oleksiy Kuzmychev. After the introduction of sanctions, the shares of Aven and Friedman were frozen and they were removed from management, but the ownership of the shares remained with them. After falling under sanctions, Friedman returned from Great Britain to Russia and recognized his investments in Europe as a mistake.
