Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko ceded ownership of two of the world's largest coal and fertilizers companies to his wife the day before he was sanctioned by the European Union, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Melnichenko, who built his fortune in the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, gave up his stakes in the coal producer SUEK AO and fertilizer group EuroChem Group AG on March 8, the day of his 50th birthday, leaving his wife, Aleksandra Melnichenko, the beneficial ownership of the companies, the people said.
Until March 8, Melnichenko owned the two companies through a chain of trusts and corporations stretching from Moscow and the Swiss town of Zug to Cyprus and Bermuda, according to legal filings reviewed by Reuters.