From Daring to Diligent to Dangerous: The Many Colorful Faces of Russian and Eurasian Business in Africa. Part II.
Editorial Team
Leonid Fedun, a former Russian military intelligence officer, is a partner of Lukoil CEO Vagit Alekperov. He advises Alekperov and serves on Lukoil’s board. Lukoil owns stakes in the the deepwater Pecan field offshore Ghanam among other assets. Its marketing and trading company, Litasco, has enjoyed lucrative crude-oil-lifting contracts with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.Russian businessman Rashid Sardarov has interests in energy, real estate, aviation, hospitality and wildlife hunting. In 2013, he acquired several farms in Namibia, spanning 28,000 hectares (equivalent to about 34,000 football fields) through Comsar Properties SA, a Switzerland-based company he controls. Sardarov is also building a game ranch outside Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city.One of Russia’s youngest billionaires, Andrey Melnichenko is the controlling shareholder of Eurochem Group, a leading global fertilizer company with an active trading presence in Southern Africa.Alexander Zingman, a Belarusian businessman and diplomat, is the owner of AFTRADE, a company that distributes agricultural and mining equipment in Africa. He is the honorary consul of Zimbabwe in Belarus.Russian billionaire Vladimir Litvinenko owns 21 percent of the publicly traded Russian chemical company, PhosAgro. PhosAgro is one of the world’s leading phosphate-based fertilizer producers. The company has opened an office in South Africa and exports its products across the region. Andrey Kostin is a Russian banker who serves as president and chairman of the VTB, one of Russia’s leading universal banks. VTB has operations in Angola through its 50.1-percent stake in Banco VTB Africa, SA.
