The former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly bought $380 million in stock for just $100.
Kirill Shamalov purchased a 3.8 percent stake in Sibur, Russia’s biggest petrochemicals company, following his marriage to Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova in 2013, The Times in the U.K. reported, citing reports from Russian investigative outlet iStories.
Sibur, a private company run by businessmen affiliated with the Kremlin, was reportedly worth roughly $10 billion at the time of the transaction. With those numbers, it appears Shamalov bought shares of the company 3.8 million times below market value, according to the report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Russia’s petrochemical giant Sibur’s ZapSibNefteKhim plant on the outskirts of the Siberian town of Tobolsk on December 1, 2020. (Photo by Alexey NIKOLSKY / SPUTNIK / AFP) (Photo by ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)
Alexei Navalny, a Russian government critic who alleged Putin poisoned him, called the $100 purchase a “$380 million wedding gift,” according to The Moscow Times. Navalny unsuccessfully tried to sue Putin in 2015– when Shamalov was the company’s second-largest shareholder–over a $1.75 billion low-interest state loan to Sibur, The Moscow Times reported. (RELATED: Chemical Weapons Watchdog Demands Russia Explain Poisoning Of Government Critic Navalny)
Following the deal, Shamalov and Putin’s younger daughter, Yekaterina, allegedly spent thousands of dollars buying properties near Moscow and in Biarritz, France, according to the report. The duo also reportedly spent $66,000 on a carpet and more than $7,600 on Japanese books.
The investigation from iStories is based on 10,000 emails since 2002 from Shamalov’s inbox that they received from an anonymous source, according to The Times. While The Times notes that the emails could’ve been a result of hacking, they spent a year working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to verify their authenticity, according to The Guardian.
OCCRP said that Sibur chief executive Dmitry Konov confirmed the terms of the deal to them but that Shamalov didn’t have any exclusive access to special deals.
“The conditions of the purchase […] didn’t differ from the conditions of purchases by other managers,” OCCRP quoted Konov as saying. “There were no exclusive conditions for Shamalov.”
The Kremlin called the story “lies that are unable to reach their goal” on Monday, according to The Moscow Times.
Shamalov and Katerina reportedly split in 2018. Putin and his representatives have never confirmed whether Katerina is his daughter.