Mikhail Fridman

TNK-BP (2003–2013)

In 1997, Fridman had collaborated with Len Blavatnik and Viktor Vekselberg to purchase the state-owned TNK (Tyumen Oil Company), an oil company in Siberia, for $800 million. In February 2003, the British multinational oil and gas company BP agreed to form the TNK-BP joint venture with the AAR (Alfa-Access-Renova) consortium, which included Alfa Group, Blavatnik's Access Industries, and Vekselberg's Renova. After the merger, TNK-BP became the third largest oil producer in Russia, and one of the top 10 largest private oil companies in the world. Fridman was TNK-BP chairman for nine years, and CEO for three years.

Prior to the TNK-BP joint venture, in 1999 Fridman had thwarted BP by seizing BP's stake in the Siberian oil company Sidanko, via bankruptcy maneuvers widely regarded as unfair practices. And although TNK-BP was highly successful financially, Fridman's relationship with BP during the TNK-BP years was contentious, and included blocking BP's 2011 planned partnership with Rosneft for Arctic oilfield exploration.

He resigned as CEO of TNK-BP in May 2012. In 2013, TNK-BP was sold to Russia's state-owned energy group Rosneft for $56 billion, with Fridman and his Russian partners receiving $28 billion for their 50% stake, at the height of crude oil prices.

Founding LetterOne and L1 Energy (2013–2015)

Using the proceeds from the sale of their stakes in TNK-BP, Fridman and his Alfa Group partners Khan and Kuzmichev established the international investment company LetterOne (L1) in 2013, and Fridman became the company's chairman. LetterOne's additional co-founders were Petr Aven and Andrei Kosogov. Headquartered in Luxembourg, the company was created to invest in international projects in energy, telecoms, finance, technology, and other sectors. As of 31 December 2013, LetterOne had $29 billion in assets under management. In May 2015 Mervyn Davies (Lord Davies) was appointed deputy chairman of LetterOne, and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt was appointed as the board's advisor.

In 2013 LetterOne also formed L1 Energy, an energy investment vehicle, initially focused particularly on undervalued international oil and gas assets during the slump in oil prices. John Browne (Lord Browne) was appointed to its advisory board, and in March 2015 became its chairman.

L1 Energy's North Sea oil assets (2015)

On 3 March 2015, L1 Energy acquired the international oil and gas company DEA from the German utility RWE for $7 billion (€5.1 billion). Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany with extensive assets in the British North Sea, RWE DEA had total natural gas production output of 2.6bn cubic metres in 2013. The purchase was opposed by the UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, who raised concerns that Fridman might one day face international sanctions due to the Russo-Ukrainian war, which could force L1 Energy to shut down production in the North Sea, thus imperiling oil supplies and 5% of Britain's North Sea natural gas output. On 4 March 2015, Davey gave Fridman a one-week deadline to convince the UK government not to force him to sell the North Sea oil and gas assets. In April 2015, the government gave Fridman up to six months to sell.

In October 2015 Fridman and the LetterOne Group sold L1 Energy's British North Sea assets to Ineos, a Switzerland-based petrochemical company owned by Jim Ratcliffe, for $750 million. The British government assured LetterOne that the forced sale was "not a judgement on the suitability of LetterOne's owners to control these or any other assets in the UK".

In October 2015 LetterOne Group acquired German utility company E.ON's equity interests in 43 Norwegian oil and gas licences, including interests in three producing Norwegian fields, all located in the North Sea, for $1.6 billion.

LetterOne's telecom and other technology assets 2015 to present

In April 2015, LetterOne Technology (L1 Technology) was launched in London. Its focus was on buying "struggling telecom or technology companies that require a fresh infusion of capital". Various advisory board members were appointed including Brent Hoberman, Denis O'Brien, and Sir Julian Horn-Smith.

The L1 Technology fund began acting as a holding company for the 48 percent stake in Vimpelcom owned by Fridman and his partners. The fund also has a 13.2% share in the Turkish telecom company Turkcell, which since 2005 has been hampered by a long-running feud between its three largest shareholders: Cukurova, owned by Turkcell founder Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, Fridman's LetterOne via Alfa Telecom/Altimo, and Sweden's Telia Company.

In February 2016, Vimpelcom agreed to pay $800 million to settle U.S. and Dutch claims that it had bribed officials to win contracts in Uzbekistan between 2006 and 2012. A year later the company rebranded itself VEON, and changed its focus to mobile internet services such as banking, taxis, and messaging.

In February 2016, Fridman's LetterOne fund invested $200 million in Uber. In August 2016 LetterOne invested $50 million in telecommunications start-up FreedomPop, to help finance its international expansion.

Additional activities 2012 to present

In 2012 Fridman partnered with American real-estate developer Jack Rosen in a joint venture to invest $1 billion in distressed real estate properties along the U.S. East Coast.

In June 2016, LetterOne prepared to expand into healthcare by launching the $3 billion fund L1 Health in the United States, for investments in the global healthcare industry.

In October 2016, Alfa Group acquired Ukrainian bank Ukrsotsbank, by offering its parent, the Italian financial conglomerate UniCredit Group, a minority stake of 9.9% in ABH Holdings.

In December 2016, LetterOne launched L1 Retail, headquartered in London, to invest $3 billion in "the retail stars of tomorrow" in Europe and the UK.

In 2016 Fridman coined the term "Indigo Era", for his theory of a global shift to an emerging era of economics based on creativity and digital skills rather than on natural resources. In 2017 he funded a £100,000 Indigo Prize for new economic-measurement models based on the paradigm.

In June 2017 LetterOne's L1 Retail division acquired Holland & Barrett, Europe's largest health-food store chain, for £1.8 billion ($2.3 billion). Also in 2017 Fridman, via LetterOne, invested $3 billion in Pamplona Capital Management, a private-equity firm that was founded by Alexander Knaster, the former CEO of Alfa-Bank, and which Fridman had invested in previously.

In January 2018, due to concerns over possible sanctions stemming from the 2017 U.S. Congressional sanctions on Russia, Fridman announced that Alfa-Bank was phasing out its holdings in Russia's defense industry.

In May 2018 Fridman and Aven spoke to an off-the-record private dinner at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. The invitation and the privacy of the meeting drew criticism of the Atlantic Council from a group of 13 Russian and U.S. experts and activists, who wrote that "In our view... Aven, Fridman, and other key Alfa-Bank oligarchs are... close cronies and insiders of Putin's regime, and do not operate independently of Putin's demands." The Atlantic Council responded that the private meeting was not "a sweetheart platform", and the Kremlin responded that the two oligarchs represented the interests of their business.

In 2019, Mikhail Fridman acquired a 50% stake in one of the suppliers of computing devices for the Russian defense industry via the structures affiliated with A1 investment company.

Sanctions

On 28 February 2022, the European Union blacklisted Fridman and had all his assets frozen as part of a package of sanctions imposed against Russian officials and oligarchs in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fridman said that the war would "damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years" and called for the "bloodshed to end".

The United Kingdom also sanctioned Fridman on 15 March 2022.

In October 2022 Fridman offered to transfer $1 billion of his personal wealth into the Ukrainian Sense Bank that he co-founded. Officials said the proposal was calculated to persuade the UK to lift sanctions against him. Fridman denied making a quid pro quo offer to Ukraine. Following the invasion of Ukraine Sense Bank transferred millions of its own budget to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and territorial defense units. Fridman was sanctioned by the UK government in 2022 in relation to the invasion.

In September 2023 the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation HM Treasury (UK) updated the text of the financial sanctions notice related to Mikhail Fridman. He is now referred to as "an involved person under the Russia regulations" instead of "a prominent Russian businessman and pro-Kremlin oligarch". Additionally, a phrase alleging close ties between Mikhail Fridman and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been deleted from the document.

On 5 September 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine announced in absentia that Fridman was suspected of violating Article 110 of the Criminal Code, which provides for liability for financing actions to seize power, overthrow the constitutional order, or change the territory of the state. Under this article, he could face up to 8 years in prison with confiscation of property. The SSU believes that since the start of the conflict, the banker has invested about 2 billion rubles in Russian defense enterprises, in particular, in the Tula Cartridge Plant.

In April 2024, following a legal challenge, The General Court of the European Union stated there were no evidence to put him on EU sanctions list.

In May 2024, Fridman sued the Luxembourg government, becoming the first Russian billionaire to challenge European sanctions and demand compensation for his frozen assets. In August 2024, Fridman, after loss of trial in Luxembourg, started arbitration dispute with Luxembourg at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC).

In March 2025, the Financial Times reported that Hungary's ambassador to the EU sought the removal of Fridman from the sanctions list, threatening to veto the extension of the 2000-person sanctions list. Hungary's effort to remove Fridman from sanctions list was supported by Luxembourg.

Legal challenges

In 2003, two "elite dachas" owned by the Russian government were sold below market value, one to Fridman and another to former Russian prime-minister Mikhail Kasyanov. The sales caught the attention of the press in July 2005, with State Duma member and journalist Aleksandr Khinshtein stating that the sales had gone through without the mandatory media announcement of auction. Khinshtein also alleged a preferential loan from Fridman to Kasyanov, which Fridman denied. Fridman stated that the property's asking price was low because the building was dilapidated and sold without land. Radio Free Europe reported that Khinshtein's investigation appeared to be an attempt to intimidate Kasyanov, who aspired to head anti-Putin forces. In early 2006, the Moscow Court of Arbitration ruled that the two houses should be returned to the state, maintaining Fridman's right to a refund but arguing the proper procedures were not followed during the privatization. On 1 March 2006, government officials responsible for the sale of the two properties were charged with misappropriation of entrusted property for an especially large sum by an organized group.

In 2005, a United States district court in Washington, D.C. dismissed a 2000 libel suit by Fridman and Petr Aven against the Center for Public Integrity over an online article which included a suggestion that they had been involved in drug-running and organized crime; the federal judge ruled that there was no evidence of actual malice on the part of the publication and that Fridman and Aven were limited public figures regarding the public controversy involving corruption in post-Soviet Russia.

In May 2017 Fridman, along with fellow Alfa-Bank owners Petr Aven and German Khan, filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified Steele dossier, which alleged financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners. In October 2017 Fridman, Aven, and Khan also filed a libel suit against the private-investigation firm Fusion GPS and its founder Glenn Simpson, who had commissioned former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, for circulating the dossier among journalists and allowing it to be published. In April 2018 Fridman, Aven, and Khan filed a libel suit against Steele in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, but the suit was dismissed with prejudice the following August. Aven, Khan, and Fridman then brought a lawsuit for defamation in Britain against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele's private intelligence firm. The trial started in March 2020 in London, with Steele arguing the claim should be dismissed as the subject matter "fell within the remit of national security". In July 2020, Mr. Justice Mark Warby in the Queen's Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice ordered Orbis pay $23,000 to both Fridman and Aven in damages, after Steele claimed they had delivered "large amounts of illicit cash" to Vladimir Putin when Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Warby stated that the claim was "demonstrably false" and awarded the damages to compensate "for the loss of autonomy, distress and reputational damage caused by the breaches of duty". The judge also stated that Steele's dossier inaccurately claimed that Aven and Fridman provided foreign policy advice to Putin. Fridman testified in the proceedings that he had never been asked by Putin to perform political favors, with Warby agreeing that "in the context of his position as a businessman, the idea of [Fridman] doing Mr Putin's political bidding makes no sense."

Alleged arrest in London

On 1 December 2022, an unnamed 58-year-old man was arrested at his residence in London and later released on bail by officers from the Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, established by the UK's National Crime Agency. Several media, such as the Russian state-owned news agency TASS, alleged the man was Mikhail Fridman. Alfa-Bank denied that Fridman was the man in question. The Russian Embassy in London, meanwhile, stated that Fridman had not asked for consular assistance Later, in September 2023, the National Crime Agency closed the investigation. An NCA spokesman said that the agency would take no further action against Fridman based on the warrant executed at Athlone House in December 2022.