As Forbes found out, the family of the head of Vnesheconombank and former vice-premier Igor Shuvalov turned out to be the owner of the elite long-haul business Gulfstream G650. This is evidenced by the data of the Directorate of Civil Aviation of Luxembourg on May 11, 2018. It states that the Gulfstream G650 with registration number LX-MOW is registered with Altitude X3, registered in Bermuda. Previously, the company with this name was issued the previous business Shuvalov Bombardier Global Express. The catalog cost of the new vessel of the VEB's family is about $ 70 million. The operator of the aircraft is Global Jet Luxembourg S.A, the "daughter" of Global Jet, popular with Russian businessmen.
Representative Igor Shuvalov declined to comment on this information. Source Forbes, familiar with the situation, confirmed that the aircraft belongs to the family of Shuvalov. "Perhaps he belongs to [Igor Shuvalov] not directly, but is exploited in his interests," he explained.
Aircraft for corgi
Altitude is the single name of the whole family of companies registered in Bermuda. Information about them is contained in the so-called "paradise dossier" - documents of the offshore registrar Appleby. Altitude X3 was registered in 2008. The fact that it belongs to the Shuvalov, was first reported by the editor-in-chief of the radio station Ekho Moskvy, Alexei Venediktov, in August 2016. Shortly before that, the Anti-Corruption Foundation of Aleksei Navalny published an investigation into the Bombardier Global Express plane with the M-VQBI number belonging to Shuvalov. Navalny claimed that on this plane Olga Shuvalova carries her doggy shows to her dog shows, and noted that in the declaration of Igor Shuvalov (at that time he was vice-premier) the aircraft was not specified.
In response, Venediktov said that the Bombardier was purchased by the offshore company Regional Property Developments of the Shuvalovs in 2009, with the proceeds from the loan they provided to the company Suleiman Kerimov F 20 for the purchase of Gazprom shares. Later Shuvalov designed the aircraft on the Altitude X3. Kerimov himself used a Boeing Business Jet with the VP-BBW number, which was also issued for the Bermuda company Altitude 41. Moreover, the owners of the Kerimov and Shuvalovs owned Bermuda owners and co-owners. This, for example, Nariman Hajiyev, a namesake living in Switzerland and the namesake of the ex-minister of press and information of the Republic of Dagestan (Forbes sources call him a relative of Kerimov), and Alexander Studhalter is a Swiss financier and owner of the Villa Hier in Nice, because of which last year French police detained Kerimov.
In 2013, the State Duma ordered officials to transfer foreign assets to Russia. As Venediktov claimed, Bumardier Shuvalov was already decorated on the Altitude X3, and it was impossible to translate it to Russia according to local laws. "Then the Shuvalov family decided to give Altitude to their adult son Eugene. The transaction was completed on July 31, 2013. Act I saw the sale, "Venediktov said. At the same time, he pointed out that Global Jet operated the aircraft. Evgeny Shuvalov did not respond to the request of Forbes.
According to the data of the air register of the Isle of Man, Bombardier Shuvalov was registered on the island in March 2010, and in February 2018 was taken off the register. According to a Forbes source familiar with the situation, this plane has already been sold.
To meet with the President
The new Gulfstream G650 family business card from October 2016 to December 2017 was registered on the Isle of Man, and later in Luxembourg. Re-registration of aircraft is a common practice, this happens quite often, says Bizavnews project manager Dmitry Petrochenko. "Now everyone optimizes the cost of operation - the use of aircraft in the current realities is becoming more expensive and more expensive," he explains. According to the expert, now many owners of private jets are looking for the best option in terms of getting more services for less money.
The choice of the company-operator Global Jet (number 1 among Russian billionaires), as well as the choice of Gulfstream G650 is not surprising, continues Petrochenko. "It will be one day in New York and it's only the ultra-long plane that can fly to London urgently," he explains. The G650 is able to overcome up to 13,000 km without refueling. The vessel is fully equipped for rest and work, it has access to the Internet and telephony.
It was not possible to track the movement of the new plane of the Shubalov Forbes. At all air-trakking resources this possibility is blocked. According to an interlocutor Forbes, working in the private aviation market, apparently, the plane was removed from them manually.
The data of sites that publish photos of private jets also do not give a complete idea of where the jet flies. At the end of last year, he was seen several times in Austria, where the Shuvalov family owns a house, and on May 24 arrived in St. Petersburg. On this day, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum kicked off in the northern capital, and Igor Shuvalov met with Vladimir Putin at the Konstantinovsky Palace, where the president invited him to head Vnesheconombank.