Suleiman Kerimov

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Suleiman Kerimov (born 1966) is a Russian billionaire and known as "Russia's Richest Civil Servant". He was born in Derbent, Dagestan and is a member of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party. He is listed as #72 on Forbes' World's Richest People, though there seems to be controversy over this ranking since the assets appear to have been financed by significant debts about which no public disclosure has been made. Kerimov is thought to control Nafta-Moskva, a successor to the Soviet oil trader Soyuznefteexport and has built up his wealth investing in Gazprom and Sberbank. Nafta-Moskva owns 5% of Sberbank and 20% of BINBank, from whom it borrows to finance its leveraged investments in resource companies, using the acquired shares as collateral pledges. He is an enigmatic figure who claims to eschew publicity but advertizes a lavish lifestyle in the media.

Further controversy surrounds the original source of wealth preceding the heavy borrowings of the years 2003-2005. In December 2005, Kerimov reportedly bought Polimetall, one of the country's largest gold and silver miners, using a $1 billion short term loan from Sberbank. In 2006 he tried and failed to IPO 25% of Polimetall on the London Stock Exchange for the original $1 billion price that he bought all of the company for. Allen Vine is CEO of Nafta-Moskva and remains affiliated with Merrill Lynch, who also advise Nafta-Moskva.

Nafta-Moskva was named by the United States Departments of State and Justice along with Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Liberal Democratic Party leader) and US oil company Bayoil in the U.N. Oil for Food scandal in 2005. Zhirinovsky and Kerimov both visited Iraq in 1998 on an airliner provided by Kerimov's airline company at the time.

1 2006 car accident
2 References
3 See Also
4 External links

[edit] 2006 car accident

This section documents a current event.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

On November 25, while driving from Nice airport on the Promenade des Anglais, Kerimov hit (at an unknown speed) a sidewalk in a black Enzo Ferrari loaned to him by a friend. The car went over the sidewalk to crash into a nearby tree and burst into flames ^[1]. He suffered severe burns and as of November 26, his doctors are not sure he will recover.^[2]