Then, Oleg Tinkov, the founder of Tinkoff Bank, one of Russia’s largest private banks, sold his company to Interros on April 28 for an undisclosed amount after publicly denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. TinkovAnd earlier this week, Potanin’s Interros acquired United Card Services, the Russian arm of U.S. payments firm Global Payments Inc. .
“Potanin has always been the ultimate opportunist,” says Stanislav Markus, a business professor at the University of South Carolina who focuses on the post-Soviet economy. “From loans for shares, to his clashes with Oleg Deripaska over Nornickel, to his philanthropic bridge-building with Western stakeholders and, now, to his correct interpretation of power recalibration in Russia.”
U.S and EU authorities have not commented on why Potanin has avoided sanctioning. Paloma Hall Caballero, a spokesperson for the European Commission, declined to comment on Potanin’s sanctions status but added, “nothing is off the table.” The U.S. Treasury did not respond to’ request for comment. Many suspect Potanin has avoided sanctions due to the West’s significant reliance on Nornickel.
Vladimir Potanin gives President Vladimir Putin a tour of the $2 billion Rosa Khutor ski resort in 2013, ahead of the 2014 Sochi olympicsin 1961 to a well-to-do family of Communist party members, Potanin attended the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the early 1980s, followed by a job in the Ministry of Foreign trade. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Potanin created his financial holding company Interros, which began as a trader of nonferrous metals.
But Potanin nearly lost it all during the 1998 Russian financial crisis, as a run on the Ruble decimated the value of oligarchs’ shareholdings. Potanin effectively stripped Oneximbank of valuable assets, with the effect of preserving his personal fortune while saddling the bank’s foreign shareholders with its liabilities.
I guess he must have a huge yacht.