Roman Abramovich’s latest foreign asset may return to Russia
Oligarch Roman Abramovich has decided to move his latest asset to Russia three years after numerous sanctions were imposed.
Evraz Group S.A. and Evraz plc, structures of the Evraz metallurgical holding company registered in Luxembourg and Great Britain, will cease to be connected with Russian metallurgical plants and will probably be taken over by the Russian JSC Evraz KGOK. The latter has filed a lawsuit for 200 billion rubles and intends to recover assets from Evraz Group S.A. and Evraz plc through the Arbitration Court of Moscow. The case is being considered in closed session.
The stake in Evraz KGOK is owned by Evraz NTMK, which is called a subsidiary of Evraz plc on Evraz’s website. At the end of 2021, 28.64% of Evraz plc was controlled by Roman Abramovich. In 2022, Abramovich and Evraz plc came under UK sanctions and the company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) was suspended. Evraz’s steelmaking capacity is 12.1 million tons, iron ore capacity is 69 million tons and vanadium capacity is 8 million tons with plans to increase by 12 million tons this year. Revenue for 2024 fell 7% to $7.19 bln.
Lawyers interviewed by the Kommersant newspaper believe that Abramovich wants to change the ownership of Evraz’s assets in Russia. A representative of Evraz said that the dispute is related to intragroup debt. According to him, the group’s companies in foreign jurisdictions comply with sanctions, while for Russian companies this entails negative consequences: non-receipt of income from foreign currency transactions and fines.
Previously, other Russian oligarchs caught up in the sanctions underwent a similar procedure. The court suspended the corporate rights of the Cyprus-based ABH Financial, which controlled Alfa Bank. Its main owners were Pyotr Aven, Mikhail Fridman and Andrei Kosogov. The latter in March 2023 bought the shares from Aven and Fridman, and the Russian joint stock company AB Holding became the owner of the bank. A similar procedure was carried out with respect to another asset of Alfa Group – retailer X5 Group and Rusagro owned by Vadim Moshkovich. Both companies also moved from Cyprus. Moshkovich’s attempt to leave Cyprus did not help him improve relations with the Russian authorities – he was arrested in March 2025 on charges of large-scale fraud and bribery.