Putin’s cellist friend Roldugin’s foundation received 14 billion rubles’ worth of Deripaska’s En+ shares

The foundation of Putin’s friend, cellist Roldugin, received 14 billion rubles’ worth of shares in Deripaska’s En+. They were called a “donation,” and the transfer was apparently hidden

The foundation of Vladimir Putin’s friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, has acquired a stake in billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group, Verstka found.

In March, En+ published its annual report on the company’s financial results. It stated that in 2025, “31,942 thousand shares of the parent company were donated.” At the same time, the documents did not disclose who exactly received the stake in the company, amounting to just under 5% (around 14 billion rubles).

Users of the Smartlab trading platform suggested that the transfer of exactly 4.99% of En+’s charter capital was no accident. The point is that under securities market legislation, as soon as a shareholder’s stake reaches or exceeds 5%, they must send the relevant notification to the Bank of Russia, after which this information becomes available to all market participants and appears on the websites of authorized agencies, such as e-disclosure.

As Verstka discovered, this “donation” in the form of shares worth a total of around 14 billion rubles was received by the Talent and Success foundation of cellist Sergei Roldugin. The foundation disclosed this information in its own reporting, published in the Justice Ministry’s registry.

The document says that Talent and Success became a shareholder of En+ on October 31 last year. And the explanatory note to the foundation’s accounting report gives the exact number of shares: 31,942,444 (5% minus one share). In other words, if Talent and Success had received just one more share, it would have been required to make this information public by issuing the corresponding notification.

🟦The word “donation,” used to describe the transfer of En+ shares to the Talent and Success foundation, is not being used for the first time in connection with the redistribution of Oleg Deripaska’s assets. The same term was used in 2019, when Deripaska reduced his stakes in his companies in order to have U.S. sanctions lifted from them.

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