Dmitry Rybolovlev

Wilbur Ross’s $4.5 billion divorce. He hid money around the world. Rybolovlev bought an overpriced mansion in Palm Beach from Trump. 

The Rachel Maddow Show: New Commerce Secretary at nexus of lucrative Trump Russian deal NBC. February 27, 2017 “With a line that runs through newly confirmed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Rachel Maddow connects the dots between a billionaire Russian oligarch and a Donald Trump deal worth tens of millions of dollars.”


“Dmitry Yevgenyevich Rybolovlev born 22 November 1966,  is a Russian businessman and investor. Rybolovlev owned the potash producer Uralkali and, in 2011, became the President of Monaco’s football club AS Monaco.[3] He has two daughters, Ekaterina and Anna Rybolovleva.[4]

As of October 2018, Rybolovlev is ranked 242nd on Forbes‘s list of billionaires with a net worth of $6.8 billion.[5][6] Since January 2015 he has become known as one of the most high-profile alleged victims of Swiss art transporter Yves Bouvier as part of a group of cases that have become known collectively as The Bouvier Affair.

His parents were doctors and he himself graduated from the Perm Medical Institute in 1990 and started to work in the cardiology emergency service of the local hospital.[7] Rybolovlev married Elena, one of his fellow students, and in 1989 their first daughter Ekaterina was born.[7]

Rybolovlev entered the business world in 1990.[5]

Together with his father, Evgeny, he set up a company that offered a form of alternative medical treatment using magnetic fields that Evgeny had developed.[7] However, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy, companies preferred to pay Rybolovlev’s firm with products rather than cash, and he created a side business selling these products.[7]

In 1992 Rybolovlev moved to Moscow and received a brokerage license from the Russian Ministry of Finance, the first in the Perm region, which permitted him to trade and deal with securities. That same year, he opened an investment company.[8]

He founded a bank in 1994, acquired shareholdings in several of Perm’s industrial enterprises and joined their boards.[7]

In 1995, Rybolovlev sold most of his shareholdings and focused in enterprises operating in the potash industry, in particular, Uralkali.[9]

Over the next 15 years Rybolovlev focused on developing Uralkali and eventually built it into a major global enterprise.[10] According to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, by 2000 he had consolidated his controlling interest in the company and begun to reform and develop it.[citation needed] He completely changed the management team and set as a priority the achievement of an increase in labor productivity.

According to Reuters, in 2005 Uralkali and Belarusian potash producer Belaruskali combined their trade flows via a single trader: Belarusian Potash Company (BPC), of which Rybolovlev became chief executive.[11] Over the next three years, potash prices increased more than fivefold. The price increase and the creation of BPC both had a transformational impact on Uralkali.[12][13] In 2007 Uralkali’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange coincided with the sharply rising global potash prices and was therefore described by the financial media as one of the most successful Russian IPOs ever.[14]

In June 2010, Rybolovlev sold a 53% shareholding in Uralkali to a group of Russian investors: Kaliha Finance Limited (Suleiman Kerimov, 25%), Aerellia Investments Limited (Alexander Nesis, 15%) and Becounioco Holdings Limited (Filaret Galchev, 13.2%).[15][16] The transaction price was not disclosed, but was reported to be around $5.3 billion.[17]

In December 2010, Uralkali bought a 20% stake in Silvinit for $1.4 billion from Rybolovlev.[18][19] The merger was finalized in July 2011, after Rybolovlev had sold the remaining shares of Uralkali.[20] 

In September 2010, Rybolovlev bought a 9.7% stake in Cyprus largest bank, Bank of Cyprus.[35] Rybolovlev’s investment in Bank of Cyprus followed significant financial dealings in the country. Following the country’s deep recession, on 25 March 2013 the Eurogroup agreed with the government of Cyprus that the Bank of Cyprus would take over the remnants of Laiki Bank. To finance the deal and save Bank of Cyprus from bankruptcy it was also decided that accounts over €100,000 would suffer a haircut on their assets of about 50%, which mostly wiped out Rybolovlev’s stake and ended his involvement in the Bank with a $600 million loss.[36]

Rybolovlev relocated to Monaco in 2010 and in December 2011, a trust acting on behalf of Rybolovlev’s daughter, Ekaterina, bought a 66% stake in the Monegasque association football club AS Monaco FC.[37][38] The club was in a bad state at the time, playing at the bottom of the French second ligue and highly in debt, and the Palace was looking for an investor to improve the club’s prospects.[39] According to French media reports, Ryboloblev acquired the club for a symbolic €1, but with a commitment to invest at least €100 million ($129.4 million) into the club over the next four years.[40][41]

The remaining 33% stake in the club is owned by Monaco’s ruling family, the House of Grimaldi, with Rybolovlev’s acquisition of the stake in the club approved by Prince Albert II of Monaco. Dmitry Rybolovlev was subsequently appointed president of the club.[37]” Wikipedia