Translated material
Tony and son
Photo: Anushka Tony's Instagram pageTony and son
How the son of a top manager of Russian Railways became a major international rentier by the age of thirty
Luxembourg caseAt the end of 2020, journalists from the French newspaper Le Monde, the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) and Important Stories received access to documents about the real owners of all companies registered in Luxembourg. Among them were more than a thousand Russians, including former and current employees of state-owned companies. Wealthy Russian families have been using Luxembourg companies for years to save on taxes on expensive European real estate while maintaining anonymity.
Russian citizens have bought up a lot of luxury real estate around the world, but thanks to the Luxembourg files, we found a particularly outstanding rentier. This man, who recently turned 33, owns an ancient castle in France, an apartment in Paris between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe; two villas on the Cote d'Azur, housing in the most expensive area of London, an estate in Prague, two houses, three apartments and land in the resort province of Alicante in Spain and even a railway depot in Germany.
The total value of the assets that this rentier owns through Luxembourg companies is more than 50 million euros. In addition, Important Stories found another 40 million euros worth of real estate owned by an investment fund associated with it. The wealthy Russian's name is Sergei Toni. He has never done business in Russia. But he is the son of Oleg Tony, the top manager of the Russian state monopoly Russian Railways (RZD). Perhaps this explains his fabulous wealth.
“Important Stories” studied the reports of more than a dozen companies from Luxembourg, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany to assess the scale of the foreign holdings of the Tony family and understand where a simple Soviet builder who made a career in a state-owned company got the money to buy them.
Russian Railways, corruption and conflict of interest
Deputy Director of the state company Russian Railways Oleg Toni was born and raised in Voronezh. As stated on his personal website , he began working during his student years and in 1986 was already a foreman in the construction and installation department of the Voronezh Stroitrest. Then he moved to work in St. Petersburg and “decisively moved up the career ladder”: first in private companies, and then in the state-owned Russian Railways. He has been working in various leadership positions in the state monopoly for more than 15 years and did not lose his position as deputy general director even after the resignation of the long-time head of Russian Railways, a close friend of President Putin, Vladimir Yakunin.
Russian and world media have made many investigations into how the state railway company's funds were spent. In 2014, the international agency Reuters discovered that construction contracts worth tens of billions of rubles went to companies associated with Vladimir Yakunin’s former adviser and friend Andrei Krapivin (he died in 2015, and his holding was inherited by his son Alexey). Contractors associated with Krapivin then transferred the funds received from Russian Railways to shell companies registered under fake people. Subsequently, as Reuters wrote, this money was transferred abroad.
Novaya Gazeta and OCCRP wrote in 2016 how Andrei Krapivin’s son Alexey received millions of dollars by acting as an intermediary in transactions between Russian Railways and the international engineering giant Bombardier Inc. This publication subsequently led to a criminal investigation into bribery in Sweden.
Oleg Toni came to work at Russian Railways in March 2004. He apparently had a warm relationship with the then leader Vladimir Yakunin: when Tony published the book “The Golden Ratio: Reflections on the Fate of Modern Russia” in 2008, the head of Russian Railways wrote a preface to it. Yakunin even once dedicated a post to his deputy on LiveJournal ( Yakunin’s blog has now been deleted, but the post has been preserved in reprint . - Ed. ).
“He was the key leader who organized the construction of all Olympic facilities of Russian Railways JSC in Sochi. In fact, in 5 years, from scratch, designing and building what we built is something that few people can do. We didn’t have time to build up, and it is very important that at the head of all this there was a person who led the process, understanding the problem not only from an organizational, but also from an engineering point of view, wrote Yakunin. — For his contribution to the preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi, the President of Russia awarded Oleg Tony the Order of Alexander Nevsky. The man mastered such a construction project and was appreciated!”
Support those who write about corruption Your donation will help us find what officials are hidingSupport “Important Stories”One of the key contractors of Russian Railways during the construction of facilities in Sochi, of which Yakunin is so proud, was the Transyuzhstroy company. At that time, the company belonged to Anatoly Antipov and Alexander Shevelev. These are Oleg Tony's business partners. Before he took over as vice president of Russian Railways, they together owned shares in several companies. According to Forbes calculations , Tony’s former partners were among the largest contractors of Russian Railways for the entire 13 years that the state-owned company was managed by Yakunin, and Tony worked there as vice president. Oleg Toni did not answer the question from “Important Stories” whether he sees a conflict of interest in this, and if so, whether the conflict has been resolved.
The deputy director of Russian Railways should not publicly report his income. But every year the state-owned company publishes information about how much board members receive in total. According to our estimates, Tony can receive about 50 million rubles a year from Russian Railways. But even with such annual income, it is difficult to explain how his family got $50 million worth of real estate in Europe.
France
Palaces and villas began to appear in Tony’s family in 2003–2004 , almost at the same time when Tony Sr. just started working at Russian Railways. In 2003, Tagot Marketing Corp, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, acquired the ancient Chateau de Montapeau mansion in France. The director of the offshore purchasing company was Tony Sr.’s wife, Irina.
Located near Paris, the two-story neo-Gothic style castle with a spacious attic was built in 1850, its total area is 900 square meters. On the ground floor of the mansion there is an office with a fireplace, a dining room, a billiard room and two living rooms; A massive oak staircase leads to the upper floors, where there are a further 19 bedrooms. In 2003, an independent expert valued this property at three million euros. Now the restored and renovated chateau belongs to Sergei Toni.
Also in 2003, through the same offshore company from the British Virgin Islands, Tony's family purchased an apartment in Paris on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The appraiser specifically emphasized the favorable location of the property: 200 meters from the Elysee Palace. The area of the apartment is 91 square meters plus a terrace of 35 square meters.
A couple of months later, a villa appeared on the Cote d'Azur in the town of Le Cannet in the mountainous area north of Cannes. The two-story villa includes a living room and kitchen area with access to a winter garden, a sauna, a billiard room, and three bedrooms. When Tony's family purchased this villa, an expert valued it at three million euros.
In 2004, the Tonys purchased another small house in Le Cannet - only 108 square meters - worth 300 thousand euros.
It turns out that in 2003–2004, Tony’s family spent about seven million euros on the purchase of property abroad.
Before joining the state monopoly, Oleg Toni was a partner in the large construction corporation Baltic Construction Company (BSK). His biography says that he sold his stake in BSK before joining Russian Railways. Almost 15 years later, it is difficult to estimate how much the entire BSK might have been worth, but Tony's share of the company's net assets can be approximately estimated at 85 million rubles (about three million euros) - significantly less than the value of the French real estate he acquired.
BSK is not one legal entity, but many separate companies. Oleg Toni had different shares in different years in four legal entities LLC BSK-59, BSK-55, BSK-YUG and JSC BSK Moscow. To get the estimated value of his shares, we took the accounting reports of these companies for the year preceding the year when Oleg Toni sold his shares. We calculated the net asset value of each company (that is, we subtracted liabilities from assets). And we multiplied the amount of net assets by Oleg Tony’s share for each legal entity. This is one of the accepted methods of valuing a company, although it only shows the approximate value of the firm.
In 2006, the offshore companies of the Toni family transferred the acquired property to the balance of a Luxembourg company, the ultimate owner of which is currently Sergei Toni. The maintenance of all this property costs millions of euros. Judging by the reporting of the Luxembourg company, money for these purposes came in the form of loans, but not from banks, but from unnamed companies whose owners are unknown.
Castles, villas and an apartment in Paris are just a small part of Tony's vast empire.
Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy
The next country in which Tony's family began buying real estate was Spain. For this purpose, another company was created in Luxembourg. From 2010 to 2018, this company acquired a villa, four apartments and two houses with land in the province of Alicante - for a total cost of 5.1 million euros. The same company has a long-term lease of space in the Spanish port of Marina de Denia. All this real estate, judging by the company’s reporting, does not bring income to Tony’s family - only losses that are covered by loans from unnamed sources at 1% per annum, which is a low rate even for Europe.
Tony's family also invests in commercial real estate. For these purposes, another separate company was created in Luxembourg. From 2012 to 2013, it acquired assets totaling €24 million. Among them:
Courtyard by Marriott Seestern hotel in Dusseldorf, Germany (Tony's share - 50%);
Crowne Plaza hotel in Maastricht, the Netherlands (50% share);
Porte di Moncalieri shopping center near Turin, Italy (100% share).
Now these properties belong to the investment fund UFG Global Commercial & Hospitality Real Estate Fund under the management of the United Financial Group (this is a large investment company that, in particular, managed the assets of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin). From 2014 to 2018, this investment fund acquired real estate for a total of 40 million euros: in addition to two hotels and a shopping center in Italy, it bought another hotel in Düsseldorf and two commercial centers in Moscow (the fund’s total assets are 100 million euros). Almost all of these properties once belonged to Tony's family. (To find out more about the investment fund, click the “fact check” button at the top of the page).
The fund owned six real estate properties in 2018: three of them were the above-mentioned hotels and a shopping center in Turin, which belonged to the Luxembourg company of Sergei Toni. And also a hotel in Dusseldorf, or rather, a share in the British limited liability partnership (LLP), to which it was registered. Now this British company lists Maria Chitipakhovyan as one of the controlling shareholders (the Chitipakhovyan family are long-time partners of Tony Sr. Until 2008, the director of this company was Trevisiani Services, the same one that acquired French real estate in 2003, and Irina Tony was listed as its director.
In addition, the investment fund owns the Russian company Rus-import-komplekt. An office building in Moscow on Novolesnaya Street, 2 is registered to it. Before becoming the property of the foundation, this company belonged to Oleg Toni. "Important Stories" did not find a connection between the last property - a commercial center in Luxembourg itself - and Tony's family.
Sergey Toni today holds the position of one of the directors of the UFG Global Commercial & Hospitality Real Estate Fund.
Between London and Monaco
All this is probably just part of Tony Jr.'s business empire. Documents from the Panama Files , the biggest data leak from Panamanian registered agent Mossack Fonseca, show that he has owned a company registered in the British Virgin Islands since at least 2013, when he was 26 years old. When registering it, Tony indicated his address in Monaco. In 2018, an apartment in Knightsbridge, one of the most prestigious areas of London, was registered to this company.
Judging by social networks, Sergei Tony’s family now lives between London and Monaco. Tony Jr.’s wife is the daughter of the former Azerbaijani ambassador to London Hanushka Tony, nee Ibragimova. Together, the couple runs a British real estate company, also in London and Monaco. Hanushka Tony, as director, invested almost £2 million in the firm. True, this company is not profitable yet. In addition, Tony's wife opened a designer handbag store in London with her mother. However, the store is still bringing only losses.
This does not stop Tony's family from leading a luxurious lifestyle. For example, according to Instagram, for her birthday in 2015, Hanushka received a car from the luxury British brand Aston Martin, she wears outfits from premium brands Fendi, GUCCI and Dolce & Gabbana, and the girl’s hobbies, by her own admission , are “writing, eating in various remarkable places in London and organizing clothes in her wardrobe by color and season.”
“Important Stories” sent Sergei Toni a question about the origin of his funds on Facebook, but to date has not received a response. His father Oleg Tony did not answer questions sent through the press service of Russian Railways.
Read more about the #OpenLux project , as well as about the secret overseas real estate of Gazprom top managers and how shares purchased for Rosneft ended up in the hands of a dancer from Moscow.