Members -- 10 days ago
Words: Harry Shukman
Number 5 Belgrave Square has housed some well-heeled residents in its time: cabinet members, authors, and trade organisations with deep pockets. They certainly would have been surprised by the building’s most recent occupants –– a band of squatters from a protest group called No Fixed Abode Anti-Fascists, who briefly took over the £50m townhouse this week. Filming from inside the six-storey, seven-bed property, the occupiers gawped at the riches within: sculptures, paintings, an antique grand piano; a Turkish steam bath and a £50,000 dining table designed by the Queen’s nephew.
This was a demonstration against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because the townhouse is owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He was beside himself with rage. “It’s truly a disgrace that this is happening in a country that is supposed to respect private property and the rule of law,” his rep fumed, unaware of the irony of invoking sovereign rights at this particular time.
Deripaska’s frustration at seeing these hippies touching all his nice expensive things has been eclipsed only by the misery of his former business partner. The fate of Roman Abramovich has been even worse than his. The 55-year-old tycoon, who is worth at least £9bn, has had a difficult month. As part of the sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs, his UK assets have been frozen and he has been banned from being in the country. The British government suspects that a company Abramovich controls, Evraz, supplies steel to the Russian military to produce tanks. Evraz is London-listed and because of the curbs put on Abramovich’s finances, he cannot sell his 29 percent stake in the company.
Oleg Deripaska's Belgravia townhouse, which has enjoyed some colourful tenants this week
EU officials say he enjoys privileged access to Vladimir Putin and offers a substantial source of revenue to the Kremlin through his industrial concerns. Having started out selling cheap plastic toys and then manufacturing tyres, Abramovich made his fortune in the cutthroat post-Soviet economy, and then through buying chunks of Aeroflot and Rusal, the aluminium company. Aged 25, he was accused of personally stopping and stealing a train carrying 55 tanks of diesel, for which he was arrested. The charges were dropped. This week, BBC Panorama reported that Abramovich’s money came from a rigged auction in 1995, in which he paid $250m for Sibneft, a state oil firm. He sold it back to the Russian government in 2005 for $13bn, a handsome return. He has denied claims that his fortune is criminal, nor that his business decisions are influenced by Putin.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Abramovich has been the football fiasco. He has had to relinquish control of his beloved Chelsea Football Club, having owned it since 2003 and turned it into the sporting giant it is today. It even prompted a rare public statement from the oligarch, in which he said he had written off the £1.5bn debt the club owed him, put Chelsea up for sale and pledged to donate proceeds to “all victims” of the war in Ukraine. Until a buyer materialises, Chelsea is now in turmoil and the fans have gone ballistic.
Abramovic's yacht Eclipse, which has thus far escaped seizure
Much of Abramovich’s obscene wealth is now at great risk. He has had to high tail it back to Moscow via Tel Aviv and Istanbul. The tycoon is known for appearing tanned and beaming on the football pitch clutching a trophy after Chelsea’s latest victory. This week he was papped in a depressing lounge of Ben Gurion Airport looking bedraggled and pale — more like a divorced dad doing the school run than one of the world’s richest men.
He’s also had to scramble to keep hold of his precious billionaire accoutrements. EU and US sanctions have already claimed the superyachts of at least five oligarchs, including the £360m floating palace, Sailing Yacht A, owned by the fertiliser magnate Andrey Melnichenko. Abramovich has at least two superyachts now trying to escape the authorities. There’s Eclipse, a Bond-villain vessel that has an estimated value of £537m and boasts two helipads, two pools, a submarine, a beauty salon, a dance floor and a military-grade missile detection system. It was the world’s longest private yacht upon delivery at 534 ft, which is longer than HMS Duncan, an air-defence destroyer that is part of the Royal Navy’s fleet. And then there’s Solaris, a space-age craft that cost £445m and is estimated to require £45m in maintenance fees every year.
Abramovich and Putin have long-held ties
Both ships are tooling around international waters to avoid capture; Solaris fled Montenegro this week and is currently in the Mediterranean between Crete and Libya, while Eclipse recently sailed east from the Caribbean island of St Maarten, which is part of the EU. It is also in the Med, around 300 miles away off the coast of Malta. Where they are headed and how they will refuel is the subject of intense speculation by marine traffic analysts who have been glued to the periodic updates pinging onto tracking websites.
Then there’s Abramovich’s supercars, helicopters and planes. He has an aircraft fleet valued at around half a billion pounds, including a customised Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet, a 50-seater aircraft that is the world’s most expensive private jet at £264m. Another jet, nicknamed The Bandit, owing to its dark stripes under the cockpit, left the UK last week ahead of the sanction announcement.
His giant property portfolio, worth an estimated £1bn globally, is also under scrutiny. He has a townhouse in Kensington worth £150m, a triplex penthouse on the Thames worth £22m, and a six-storey mansion on Eaton Square for which he paid £28m. The townhouse is reportedly up for sale, and the other two properties have apparently been seized.
Perhaps these amount to peanuts for Abramovich, a small chunk of his many billions. It still must be painful to see the disappearance of all these luxury assets and the closing up of an elite world that he used to dominate. Meanwhile, the activists of No Fixed Abode Anti-Fascists say their occupation of 5 Belgrave Square was just the beginning. A triumphant press release they put out said: “Squat oligarchs’ properties everywhere.” Abramovich has 70 properties in the UK, so they’ve got their work cut out for them.
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