Gennady Timchenko and other businessmen from the sanctions list are selling assets to a new generation.

The talent of a businessman is manifested not only in the ability to find the necessary connections, conclude profitable contracts, create or buy a promising business, but also in the ability to guess the moment to sell it. Gennady Timchenko, No. 6 on the Forbes list, demonstrated to the public his incredible instincts: he sold 44% in one of the world's largest oil traders, Gunvor, to his long-time partner Torbjorn Tornqvist exactly one day before the publication of the first US sanctions list. In an interview with TASS, Timchenko explained that he had long planned to part with Tornqvist: “Torbjorn has a different vision, he wants to trade all over the world, but with age I began to gravitate towards Russia... In a word, with Gunvor everything was planned in advance, but the clouds that began to gather over head, speeded up the process.”

Gunvor has previously experienced certain inconveniences due to the vigilant attention of inspection authorities of various countries to the identity of one of its co-owners, Gennady Timchenko. The US Department of Justice was studying the company for manipulation of world oil prices, Switzerland, as reported by Le Temps, suspected Gunvor employees of taking bribes for contracts in the Congo... The presence of a person on the US sanctions list among the shareholders can completely paralyze the business of a company with such an extensive trading network, like Gunvor. Therefore, as an acquaintance of Timchenko explained to Forbes, the businessman was faced with a choice: leave the company or lose the business altogether.

How much he earned for his share in the company, which has been the basis of his wealth since 1997, is unknown, and where the money went, too. But the total sale didn't end there. In July 2014, the businessman made several transactions: he got rid of controlling stakes in business terminals at Sheremetyevo and Pulkovo airports and sold 30% of the Russian Sea group to his son-in-law Gleb Frank. In the fall, it became known that Timchenko’s share in Sibur was bought by another representative of the younger generation of the “circle of associates” - Kirill Shamalov, the son of the co-owner of Rossiya Bank Nikolai Shamalov.

Thus, Timchenko transferred and sold over six months more than a third of his assets, which Forbes estimated at $15.3 billion in 2014. As Timchenko said in an interview with TASS: “You have to answer for everything. And for friendship with the president too.” However, in the same interview he mentioned that, if necessary, he could give everything to the state completely free of charge or donate it to charity.

Timchenko’s example was followed by other entrepreneurs who were included in Western sanctions lists. Arkady Rotenberg sold his son Igor shares in the companies Mostotrest, Gazprom Burenie and TPS Real Estate. “Sooner or later everything will be left to the children, and I always thought about how to make sure that it all doesn’t fall apart. How? In my opinion, to do this, they should do what interests them,” Rotenberg Sr. explained in an interview with Interfax. — I am convinced that when a person pays his money, this is a business, an awareness of great responsibility. And when they give you something, you don’t feel the money. You’re not afraid that you’ll lose your money.”

It seems that US and EU sanctions against Putin’s friends have brought forward the inevitable change of business elites. Talented businessmen of the new generation - sons and sons-in-law - turned out to be ready to take on the responsible business of laying pipelines, building roads, fishing, producing polypropylenes, etc. And at the same time replacing their “fathers” on the Forbes list.

Transferring assets to “children” looks simple only at first glance. “If I hadn’t been promoted as Putin’s friend, business would have been worse. And so it is developing well,” Arkady Rotenberg said in an interview with Forbes in 2012. But does the power of PR extend to the sons of Putin's friends?

Deal: Make way for the young