MILAN – The galaxy of oligarchs close to the Kremlin loses one of its most beautiful pieces. The number one of the Russian oil giant Lukoil Vagit Alekperov he resigned from the management of the company today. The Russian oligarch, who has an estimated net worth of nearly $23 billion according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, was sanctioned by Britain on April 13 for introducing 178 new measures against Moscow and pro-Kremlin Russian citizens. Alekperov is not the majority shareholder of Lukoil, as indicated in the notice of his resignation: as of March 31, he owns 3.11% of Lukoil’s shares with voting rights and is also the beneficiary (including through family trusts or investment funds). the 5,3% of Lukoil shares non-voting.
Lukoil’s position on the conflict
The resignation actually comes a week after Alekperov was included in the new list of UK-sanctioned Russian figures, even though the oligarch is not currently on the European Union and United States sanctions lists. Alekperov’s regression could therefore be read as an attempt to protect the company from Western action against Moscow. In early March, Lukoil issued a note calling for a “quick end” to the war in Ukraine. “We support a speedy end to the armed conflict and fully support its resolution through a negotiation process and diplomatic means,” Lukoil’s board said in a statement.
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Alekperov’s biography
Born in 1950 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the son of a worker in the Caspian Sea oil wells, he graduated in 1974 as an engineer in technologies and mechanization of oil and gas fields and in 1979 he moved to the rich country of Western Siberia. In 1990 he became the first deputy minister of the oil and gas industry of the Soviet Union, the youngest with such ineptitude. After the collapse of the USSR, he became the architect of the name Lukoil, inheriting Langepas-Uray-Kogalymneft, the first major state-owned power company. He has held the position of President since 1993, a position he held for nearly 30 years before announcing his resignation today.