Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (born 24 October 1966) is a Russian business oligarch and politician. He is the former owner of Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London. He has Russian, Portuguese and Israeli citizenship.
Abramovich was Governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug from 2000 to 2008.
Abramovich, including his family and affiliated related trusts, is the 371st richest person in the world with a net worth of $9.3 billion according to Forbes and the 444th richest person in the world with a net worth of $8.56 billion according to Bloomberg L.P. He is the fifth-richest person with Israeli citizenship.
Abramovich enriched himself in the loans for shares scheme by Boris Yeltsin following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, acquiring a stake in Sibneft in partnership with Boris Berezovsky for approximately $100 million in 1995, well below market value. In 2005, he sold the stake to the Russian government under Vladimir Putin for $13 billion. Like all Russian oligarchs, an allegation Abramovich has denied. in Saratov, then part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. His mother, Irina (1939‑1967), was a music teacher who died of sepsis following a botched illegal abortion when Abramovich was one year old. His father, Aaron Abramovich Leibovich (1937‑1969), worked in the economic council of the Komi ASSR and was crushed to death when a crane collapsed on him when Roman was three years old. Roman's paternal grandparents, Nachman Leibovich and Toybe (Tatyana) Stepanovna Abramovich, were Belarusian Jews. where the family name took the Lithuanian spelling Abramavičius. In 1940, during the occupation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (USSR), shortly before Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets carried out the "clearing of the anti‑Soviet, criminal and socially dangerous element", with entire families being sent to gulags in Siberia. Abramovich's grandfather, Nachman Leibovich, was a merchant and branded a "capitalist"; he was deported to an NKVD camp in the settlement of Resheti, Krasnoyarsk Territory, where he died in 1942. His uncle Leib was the director of supplies at a local factory. Nevertheless, he always harboured a desire to leave Ukhta, which he considered "too small". He subsequently attended the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow.
Career
Business career
Early career
After Mikhail Gorbachev allowed for greater openness to entrepreneurship under perestroika, Abramovich began selling plastic ducks from a stall in Moscow, eventually moving to perfumes and deodorants.
He and his first wife, Olga, set up a company making dolls. He started and liquidated at least 20 companies in various sectors. He also traded in timber, sugar, food stuffs, and other products.
In June 1992, aged 25, Abramovich was arrested and briefly imprisoned on charges of theft of government property for allegedly stealing 55 tankers-of diesel fuel, worth 3.8 million rubles, from the Ukhta Oil Refinery. Abramovich allegedly used forged documents to intercept a train carrying the fuel in Moscow and redirect the shipment to a military base, where the diesel was then sold. Despite the seriousness of the charges, Abramovich was not ultimately prosecuted. Lawyers later claimed the incident was a misunderstanding, and the case was dropped after the oil refinery was compensated for its losses. Yeltsin was organizing the loans for shares scheme; in exchange for helping Yeltsin get elected in the 1996 Russian presidential election, businessmen would be offered stakes in Soviet assets for a tiny fraction of their market value. Abramovich also thought he needed physical protection, and wanted to ask Berezovsky for advice.
Abramovich sold Sibneft to the Russian government for $13 billion in 2005. In early 2000, due to the wars, a major strike action, and the rise of Vladimir Putin, David and Simon Reuben sold their aluminium assets to Roman Abramovich in a $575 million deal.
In two transactions in 2004, Abramovich sold his 50% stake in Rusal to Deripaska for £1.8 billion, making him the richest person in the world under the age of 40.
Berezovsky v Abramovich
In 2011, Berezovsky filed a civil suit, Berezovsky v Abramovich, in the High Court of Justice in London. He accused Abramovich of blackmail, breach of trust and breach of contract. The suit sought over £3 billion in damages.
In May 2001, Patarkatsishvili asked Abramovich to pay US$1.3 billion (€925 million) to Berezovsky. He agreed to pay this amount on the basis that it would be the final request for payment by Berezovsky and that he and Patarkatsishvili would cease to associate themselves publicly with him and his business interests. However, Berezovsky said that the payment undervalued his interests, leading to the lawsuit.
At a conversation between Abramovich and Berezovsky at Le Bourget airport in December 2000, secretly recorded by Patarkatsishvili, Berezovsky spoke of how they should "legalise" their aluminium business, and later claimed in court that he was an undisclosed shareholder in the aluminium assets and that "legalisation" in this case meant to make his ownership "official". In response, Abramovich stated that they cannot legalise because the other party in the 50–50 joint venture (Rusal) would need to do the same, in a supposed reference to his business partner Oleg Deripaska. Besides Deripaska, references are made to several other players in the aluminium industry at the time that would have had to "legalise" their stake. Abramovich's lawyers later claimed that "legalisation" meant structuring protection payments to Berezovsky to ensure they complied with Western anti-money laundering regulations.
On 31 August 2012, the High Court dismissed the lawsuit. The High Court judge stated that because of the nature of the evidence, the case hinged on whether to believe Berezovsky or Abramovich's evidence. The judge found Berezovsky to be "an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes", whereas Abramovich was seen as "a truthful, and on the whole, reliable witness".
It later emerged that the stepson of the judge in the case, Elizabeth Gloster, was paid almost £500,000 to represent Abramovich as a barrister early in the case. Her stepson's involvement was alleged to be more than had been disclosed. Berezovsky stated, "Sometimes I have the impression that Putin himself wrote this judgment". Gloster declined to comment.
Other investments
In 2001, Abramovich set up Millhouse Capital as an entity to own his investments; it is also part-owned by Eugene Shvidler. Through Millhouse, he owned Prodo group, which invested in meat processing plants.
In 2003, he sold a 37.5% stake in RusPromAvto.
In 2006, Millhouse acquired 41% of Evraz for £1.6 billion.
In December 2007, Millhouse LLC, Abramovich's investment vehicle, acquired a 40% stake in Highland Gold for $400 million. In July 2020, the stake was sold to Vladislav Sviblov for $560 million.
In August 2001, companies linked to Abramovich acquired 29.3% of Aeroflot for $120 million. He sold the stake in 2003. Later that year, he paid around $750 million for White Gardens, an office complex with 64,000 square meters of rentable space near Moscow Belorussky railway station.
Abramovich was a major investor in Renaissance Insurance.
In February 2022, Abramovich acquired the Hotel Kristall in Gelendzhik, on the Black Sea.
In 2023, a company controlled by Abramovich invested $140,000 in Kiana Analytics, a real-time location services startup based in Sunnyvale, California.
From 2015 to 2021, to Abramovich was a limited partner and invested $63 million in venture capital funds managed by Target Global. Startups in which the funds invested include Cazoo and Revolut.
Investments in Israeli technology
Abramovich has invested $120 million in 20 Israeli high-tech start-ups ranging from medicine and renewable energy, to social media.
Abramovich invested over $30 million in StoreDot, founded by Doron Myersdorf, including $10 million invested in June 2014.
In April 2015, Abramovich invested $15 million in Israeli music sharing start-up Music Messenger, founded by OD Kobo. Other investors included David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, Tiësto, Avicii, will.i.am, Benny Andersson, and Dave Holmes.
Football
Chelsea Football Club
thumb|Abramovich at [[Stamford Bridge (stadium)|Stamford Bridge during a 4–0 victory over Portsmouth in August 2008]]
thumb|Abramovich watches his team, [[Chelsea F.C., play against Leicester City F.C. in August 2014]]
In June 2003, Abramovich paid approximately $190 million to acquire the companies that control Chelsea F.C. in West London from Ken Bates.
At the time of the acquisition, the team was training at the Harlington recreation ground at Imperial College London. The facilities there were outdated inferior to those of Manchester United and Liverpool, both of whom had dedicated training complexes. In 2004, Abramovich began construction of the £20 million Cobham Training Centre, which opened in 2007.
Under Abramovich, the club won 21 major trophies – the UEFA Champions League twice, the UEFA Europa League twice, the UEFA Supercup once, the FIFA Club World Cup once, the Premier League five times, the FA Cup five times (with 2010 providing the club's first ever league and FA Cup double), the League Cup three times, and the FA community shield twice, making Chelsea the most successful English trophy winning team during that period, equal with Manchester United (who have also won 16 major trophies in the same time span).
His tenure has also been marked by rapid turnover in managers. Detractors used the term "Chelski" to refer to the new Chelsea under Abramovich, to highlight the modern phenomena of billionaires buying football clubs and "purchasing trophies", by using their personal wealth to sign marquee players and distorting the transfer market, such as the acquisition of Andriy Shevchenko for a then-British record transfer fee of around £30 million.
Chelsea finished their first season after the takeover in second place in the Premier League, up from fourth the previous year. They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, which was eventually won by the surprise contender Porto, managed by José Mourinho. For Abramovich's second season at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho was recruited as the new manager, replacing Claudio Ranieri. Chelsea ended the 2004–05 season as league champions for the first time in 50 years and only the second time in their history. Also high was Abramovich's spending on Portuguese football players. He spent €165.1 million in Portugal: €90.9 million on Benfica players and €74.2 million on Porto players.
During his stewardship of the club, Abramovich was present at nearly every Chelsea game and showed visible emotion during matches, a sign taken by supporters to indicate a genuine love for the sport. He often visited the players in the dressing room following each match. This stopped for a time in early 2007, when press reports appeared of a feud between Abramovich and manager Mourinho regarding the performance of certain players such as Andriy Shevchenko.
thumb|right|Abramovich at the [[2019 UEFA Europa League Final]]
In March 2017, Chelsea received approval for a revamped £500 million stadium to replace Stamford Bridge, with a capacity of up to 60,000 people. Following the delay in the renewal of Abramovich's British visa by the Home Office, and his subsequent withdrawal of the application, in May 2018 Chelsea halted plans to build the stadium due to the "unfavourable investment climate" and the lack of assurances about Abramovich's immigration status.
In her book Putin's People (2020), Catherine Belton accused Abramovich of purchasing the Chelsea team on the orders of Vladimir Putin; Abramovich denied the claim and sued Belton and publisher HarperCollins for defamation. The defendants agreed that the claims had no factual basis.
In 2021, Abramovich entered Chelsea into the newly announced European Super League. The league was widely scrutinised for encouraging greediness among the richer, larger football clubs, which would have undermined the significance of existing football competitions. Two days later, Abramovich pulled the club out of the new competition, with other English clubs following suit, causing the league to suspend operations.
In 2022, it was reported that Abramovich was owed a $2 billion loan from Chelsea; the loan was set up in advance of possible sanctions.
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich handed over "stewardship and care" of the club to the Chelsea Charitable Foundation.
In March 2022, Abramovich said that he would sell the club due to the war in Ukraine and the threat of a full asset seizure. Although the UK government froze Abramovich's assets in the United Kingdom due to his "close ties with [the] Kremlin", it was made clear that the Chelsea club would be allowed to operate in activities which were football related. On 12 March, the Premier League disqualified Abramovich as a director of Chelsea.
In May 2022, BlueCo, led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital acquired the club.
In 2026, the team was fined £10.75 million for making undisclosed payments to agents, non-licensed intermediaries and other figures, including players, around signings between 2011 and 2018 including the signings of Eden Hazard, and Samuel Eto'o.
CSKA Moscow
In March 2004, Sibneft agreed to a three-year sponsorship deal worth €41.3 million (US$58 million) with the Russian team CSKA Moscow. Although the company explained that the decision was made at management level, some viewed the deal as an attempt by Abramovich to counter accusations of being "unpatriotic" which were made at the time of the Chelsea purchase. UEFA rules prevent one person owning more than one team participating in UEFA competitions, so Abramovich has no equity interest in CSKA. A lawyer, Alexandre Garese, is one of his partners in CSKA.
Following an investigation, Abramovich was cleared by UEFA of having a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, he was named "most influential person in Russian football" in the Russian magazine Pro Sport at the end of June 2004. In May 2005, CSKA won the UEFA Cup, becoming the first Russian club ever to win a major European football competition. In October 2005, however, Abramovich sold his interest in Sibneft and the company's new owner Gazprom, which sponsors Zenit Saint Petersburg, did not renew the sponsorship deal.
Russian national team
thumb|upright|right|Abramovich at the [[2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany]]
Abramovich helped to fund the Russia national football team, including the $7 million annual salary of its Dutch coach, Guus Hiddink. Piet de Visser, a former head scout of Hiddink's club PSV Eindhoven and later a personal assistant to Abramovich at Chelsea, recommended Hiddink to the Chelsea owner.
National Academy of Football
As of 2008, Abramovich sponsored the National Academy of Football, which organizes youth sports programmes and constructed more than fifty football pitches in Russia.
Political career
thumb|Abramovich in July 2008