An investment fund backed by Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the European Union since the invasion of Ukraine has ties to Teneo, an influential corporate consulting firm based in the United States.
The public relations and strategy giant was hired in 2020 by LetterOne, a Luxembourg-based private investment company that counts sanctioned billionaires Mikhail Friedman, a native of Ukraine, and Peter Aven as co-founders. The deal, seen by CNBC, appears to have paid Teneo more than $ 3.6 million to arrange interviews and consultations on US media strategy.
LetterOne was founded by Friedman, Aven, Alexei Kuzmichev, Andrei Kosogov and German Khan – all of whom are some of the richest business leaders based in Russia. All five founders were on the board of LetterOne, with Friedman as chairman, according to data from PitchBook, reviewed by CNBC. The executives started the company in 2013 after founding Alfa Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Russia.
Friedman and Aven were accused by the EU of having ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, allegations denied in a statement to CNBC. The statement did not answer any of CNBC’s questions about LetterOne’s work with Teneo or how the investment fund plans to move forward now that two of its founders have been sanctioned. Friedman’s bank, Alpha Bank, is also sanctioned by the United States. He called for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
After CNBC asked a LetterOne spokesman Monday about their business, including their relationship with Teneo, several pages of their website, including the “our people” section, appear to have been deleted since Tuesday morning. An error message now appears in this section, which lists the founders and CEOs of the company. The LetterOne board section is still active, but no longer shows Friedman and Aven as board members.
Joshua Hardy, a spokesman for LetterOne, said Friedman and Aven had retired on Tuesday. CNBC first contacted the private investment company on Monday.
Although the emails to Teneo were not returned, Kathleen Lacey, senior managing director of the company, which was listed in the document as working with the LetterOne account, told CNBC in a brief phone call Monday that they are no longer one of its customers and believe he no longer represented them in her company.
The FARA division of the Department of Justice, which oversees lobbying and consulting work in the United States for foreign representatives, told CNBC on Tuesday that it believes the agreement between Teneo and LetterOne “remains active.”
LetterOne has multiple ties to Teneo, which was founded by two Democrat advisers who worked for former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The private equity firm has been involved in nearly a dozen deals valued at more than $ 1 billion, according to PitchBook. Uber, for example, made a $ 200 million investment from LetterOne in 2016.
Since then, Teneo has become a consulting giant with past clients, including Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola. Foreign clients include Neom, a company that has backed a huge public investment fund to create a metropolis in Saudi Arabia, and a foundation run by the Princess of the Emirates.
Their senior advisers listed include political and business leaders, including former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, former IBM CEO Ginny Rometti, former Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liverris, and Harvey Pitt, former Commission Chairman. securities and stock exchanges.
Doug Band, once one of Bill Clinton’s closest associates, founded Teneo with Declan Kelly and Paul Curry. Kelly served as Special Envoy for Northern Ireland to the Obama administration and helped Hillary Clinton run for president in 2008. Since then, Bend and Kelly have left the company, with the latter stepping down as Teneo’s chief executive after reports that he was drunk and behaving inappropriately at an event organized by the non-profit organization Global Citizen. Kiri became CEO after Kelly’s resignation.
A contract between Teneo and LetterOne, reviewed by CNBC, shows that the consulting firm was hired in 2020 for $ 150,000 a month to advise the fund on their media strategy. Under the agreement, Teneo was expected to “provide strategic and engagement advice to the company’s stakeholders and board members (including, but not limited to, scheduling media interviews, assisting with media briefings, coordinating stakeholder engagements and related activities) ‘.
Under the contract, LetterOne was on track to pay Teneo more than $ 3.6 million as of September 2020. There were at least four Teneo representatives working on the account, according to other documents filed with the Justice Department.
Additional documents show that last year Teneo took credit for its attempts to arrange interviews for LetterOne leaders with producers and TV presenters, including those at CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business. A document shows that a Bloomberg representative has been connected almost a dozen times to see if LetterOne can sponsor one of their Bloomberg Invest events.
There are other connections between Teneo and LetterOne.
The non-executive chairman of LetterOne is Evan Davis, a British businessman who was once the UK’s Secretary of State for Trade, Investment and Small Business. He is also a senior advisor at Teneo.
VEON, a telecommunications company operating in Russia and Ukraine, is listed on the LetterOne website as one of its active investments. Ursula Burns was chairman of VEON for almost three years before retiring in 2020. She later became chairman of Teneo.
VEON, meanwhile, announced on Tuesday that Mikhail Friedman had resigned from their board.