In 1991 a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union to claim ownership of some of the world's most valuable petroleum, natural gas, and metal deposits. This resulted in one of the greatest transfers of wealth we have ever seen.Marshall Goldman 30.Apr.03
To give you some measure of that, in 1997 five of those individuals were on the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest billionaires. That is quite an accomplishment given that in 1985, or thereabouts, they had no net worth -- zero to over a billion. This year, 2003, there are seventeen on the Forbes list of the richest billionaires.
And if you saw The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times recently, two of those oligarchs tentatively agreed to merge their two petroleum companies, Yukos and Sibneft, which will create a company worth a capitalized value of about $35 billion. What is significant is that of that $35 billion capitalized value, there are only four or five individuals who own almost all of the stock, unlike Exxon where there are perhaps 100,000 stockholders.
Almost all of these self-styled oligarchs have been accused of using guile, intimidation, and occasionally violence, to reap those rewards.
How did it all happen? Who was responsible? And what was the role of Western advisors?
[...]
There were two main categories of oligarchs besides the factory directors. The first batch are those who were part of the Nomenklatura. These were the "big brothers" in the system. They were the ones who had been in the ministries, the ministers, senior party officials.
Vagit Alekperov was the Minister of Energy, and carved out three oil fields for himself from the petroleum sector, one beginning with L, one beginning with U, one beginning with K, called it LUKoil, put together some refineries, and he ran the largest oil petroleum company in Russia. He ultimately was able to buy up the stock. LUKoil has now purchased Getty Oil.
The man next to him, Rem Vyakhirev, put together Gazprom that he inherited from Chernomydrin. This is the world's largest natural gas company, one of the country's richest companies.
Do you know where Russia's second-largest natural gas producer is headquartered? If you did, you'd ruin the story. It's in Jacksonville, Florida. It's called ITERA. ITERA is an offshoot of Gazprom. It is controlled by a trust, the owners of which are the children of the Gazprom people, Vyakhirev and Chernomydrin, their wives, their mistresses, and various hangers-on. They stripped Gossnab's assets, over $1 billion a year, and ITERA is one of the by-products.
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
