Glencore Xstrata International

Aktivs

Mining

After the merger of Glencore and Xstrata in 2013, the company acquired shares in 35 coal fields in Africa, Australia, as well as in Colombia, it becomes the largest exporter of coal for thermal power plants. The company ranks 1st in the world in zinc mining, its share in this market of 13 million tons will be about 11% (and in Europe - 40%). Glencore Xstrata's copper production is the 3rd in the world, accounting for 10% of marine fuel exports.

Glencore Xstrata International competes with mining leaders such as BHP Billiton, Vale and Rio Tinto.

Trading

The founders of the company distributed management among three offices - in Baar (metal transactions and finance), London ( oil, oil products and sugar) and Rotterdam (grain). But they buy and sell raw materials, earning money for the company, not offices, but relatively independent trading employees. Each of them is an independent "combat unit," it has the right to sign and, within the agreed limits, disposes of the company's funds.

As a rule, a trader works with one type of commodity in one region. In total, it is estimated that about 300 traders work for the company in 2007. They receive not salaries, but bonuses depending on the volume of transactions they have carried out. According to one of the current employees of the company, who spoke with Forbes on condition of anonymity, the lower limit of the trader's annual income exceeds $1 million. All traders in one direction are accountable to the chief trader working in one of the head offices. The main traders in the company for 2007 are approximately 20-30, and they all have an equity stake.

"The policy is as follows: you work in a top position - you get a share, you leave - sell your share to other tops," says an employee of the Moscow office of the company.

History

2024: Exit from the capital of Russneft. Assets will be bought by Mikhail Gutseriev

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order that allowed the Swiss trader Glencore to withdraw from the capital of Russneft. The corresponding document was published in early February 2024. Read more here.

2023

Glencore loses crown to top cobalt miner to Chinese firm CMOC

CMOC Group became a major player in the cobalt market for the first time, acquiring the Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016. In 2023, the company intends to double production, as it will commission another major mine in the second quarter.

Obligation to pay Sberbank €117.9 million in debt on oil supplies by court decision

At the end of February 2023, the Moscow Arbitration Court decided to recover in favor of Sberbank from the subsidiary of the Swiss oil trader Glencore (Glencore Energy UK Ltd) debt totaling €117.9 million. The trial lasted just over a year.

According to Interfax, citing the case file, Glencore Energy UK, in particular, is collecting debt for the supply of oil mixture to the border of Ukraine and Hungary in the amount of 57.1 million euros (and a penalty of 1.7 million euros), debt for the supply of oil mixture to the border of Ukraine and Slovakia in the amount of 57.6 million euros (and a penalty of 1.5 million euros), as well as a penalty from January 20, 2023 under the agreement of October 22, 2020, accrued on the amount of debt (114.8 million euros) at the one-month LIBOR rate + 3% in national currency at the exchange rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation until the date of its repayment.

Sberbank goes to court in connection with debts and penalties under oil supply contracts

TASS recalls that Sberbank in October 2022 filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the "daughter" of the Swiss trader Glencore (Glencore Energy UK Ltd) for 7.2 billion rubles (about €118 million) in connection with debts and penalties under contracts for the supply of oil to the borders of Ukraine with Hungary and Slovakia.

It was about debt under the agreement on the purchase of future products dated October 22, 2020 for the supply of oil mixture to the border of Ukraine and Hungary on March 4-11, 2022, for the supply of oil mixture to the border of Ukraine and Slovakia on March 4-10, 2022 and March 19-22, 2022. The third party to the claim is Sber Trading Swiss AG.

Glencore Energy UK refused to pay under the contract to the structure of Sberbank, citing sanctions, so the bank was forced to go to court, the first deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank Alexander Vedyakhin explained earlier the decision of the credit institution to file a lawsuit against Glencore's subsidiary.

"The bank confirms the filing of the claim. This is a forced measure, since the attempts made by the bank to resolve the situation out of court were unsuccessful, "Sberbank said[1]

2022

Record profit for the year due to the sale of coal

In 2022, the company made a record profit of $34 billion. More than half of that profit came from coal.

The head of the company says that "fossil fuels are still needed. Coal is a necessary fuel today, providing a stable base capacity, especially for developing countries. "

Recognition in the transportation of $28 million in cash in private planes for bribes to officials

In early November 2022, information appeared that the Swiss commodity giant Glencore admitted to transporting $28 million in cash in private planes for bribes to officials in South Sudan. Company officials plead guilty to a decade of bribery and manipulation.

The UK's Anti-Fraud Office (SFO) revealed how Glencore paid more than $28 million in bribes in five African countries from 2011 to 2016, using methods that in some cases were carbon copies of deals made by Rich in the 1970s and 1980s. On November 3, 2022, a judge imposed a fine for Glencore's actions in the amount of $308 million, in addition to the approximately $1.1 billion that the company has already paid in relevant cases in the United States and Brazil.

Swiss commodity giant Glencore admits to transporting $28 million in cash in private planes for bribes to officials

Glencore traders passed large amounts of cash to government officials, they sought to cash in on political turmoil and got involved in deals between governments that were negotiated at preferential rates.

The East African country of South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011. By 21 July 2011, a Glencore executive, identified by the SFO only as a "GE7" and a member of the business ethics committee of the company's London office, was already flying the plane to persuade the South Sudanese president and other members of the government to grant the Glencore joint venture an oil sales contract.

Two other employees arrived in the capital of Juba with $800 thousand in cash a few days later. They said the money was meant to open an office in South Sudan, pay for office infrastructure, salaries, cars, etc., but in fact the local agent used some of that money to pay bribes, the SFO said.

A few months later, an aide to South Sudan's president visited Glencore executives in Zurich and London. One of the company's leaders withdrew another $275 thousand from the company's cash desk at the Swiss headquarters, and the next day an oil deal was offered to the South Sudanese division of Glencore.

At a hearing attended by Glencore chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi, a lawyer for the company said Glencore unequivocally regretted the harm caused by these offences. Madhavpeddi declined to comment on the proceedings when approached by Bloomberg outside court.

The SFO case describes how in Nigeria Glencore paid millions to dollars an intermediary who were used to state bribe oil company officials using sham contracts to hide the true purpose of the payments. The Nigerian agent also moved cash on a private jet to Cameroon. There, a Glencore trader used them to bribe officials of a state oil and gas company and a state oil refinery.

In Malawi, the company used a scheme Rich developed 40 years ago. In the 1980s, thanks to an enterprising employee under the pseudonym Monsieur Ndolo, the trading house got involved in a deal between the Iranian government and the Burundi government, profiting from interest-free payment terms that Tehran was willing to offer its poorer African ally.

In its summary of the case, the SFO detailed how Glencore had done something similar as part of an intergovernmental oil deal between Nigeria and Malawi. According to the SFO, traders and Glencore executives authorized bribes to officials of Nigeria's state-owned oil company to take advantage of the "free credit" set out in the joint venture agreement.

The department noted that at the time of the offense, Glencore had an anti-corruption policy, but according to the SFO, it was largely ignored because corruption was condoned at a very high level in the company.^[2]

Payment of a fine of $1.1 billion for bribes

On May 24, 2022, Glencore agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle charges of bribing officials in several countries and manipulating oil prices. The settlement was the result of months of negotiations between the company and prosecutors in the United States, Britain and Brazil over Glencore's activities in the United States, Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria starting in 2018.

In February 2021, the company allocated $1.5 billion in reserves to pay fines and compensation that may arise as a result of international investigations of its activities in several resource-rich countries in Africa and South America.

Glencore will pay $1.1 billion for bribes

As part of the settlement, two Glencore units pleaded guilty, and the company agreed to pay two separate fines - $700 million to settle a bribery investigation and $485 million in connection with a "multi-year scheme to manipulate benchmarks used to set oil prices at our country's two busiest ports," said Kenneth Polayt, head of the criminal department of the US Department of Justice.

Two mid-level sales agents have also pleaded guilty, one to conspiring to manipulate the benchmark, the other to bribe officials in Nigeria to secure a lucrative contract with the state-owned oil conglomerate.

The company is left to deal with investigations in Switzerland, where it is based, and the Netherlands, but company executives said in a statement published on the company's website that they believe they will not need to allocate money in addition to the $1.5 billion already reserved.

We acknowledge the misconduct identified during the investigation and are cooperating with the authorities, 'he wrote in a statement. This behaviour has no place at Glencore and the board, the management of the company and I are very clear about the culture we want to create and our commitment to be a responsible and ethical enterprise wherever we work.[3]

Cerrejon coal mine purchase for $588 million

On January 11, 2022, the Swiss Glencore announced the buyout of the remaining stakes in the world's largest coal mine Cerrejon, becoming its sole owner of 100%. The deal worth $588 million was concluded with Anglo American and BHP, which owned a 33.3% stake in Cerrejon. Read more here.

2012: Glencore and Xstrata merger

In November 2012, Glencore and Xstrata shareholders approved a $31 billion merger deal that resulted in one of the largest companies in the mining industry. The deal, according to Dealogic, is the largest in mining history. In the natural resources sector as a whole, it ranks 5th in size after the mergers of the largest oil companies^[4].

2002: Glasenberg becomes chief

In 2002, a new and almost invisible change of power took place at Glencore: another chief trader, this time coal, Ivan Glasenberg, became the company's executive director. The principle of "the outgoing sells everything" is unshakable, so Willy Strothotte takes the place of chairman of the board of directors - "reigns, but does not rule," waiting for his colleagues to raise enough money to settle with him. The place of the head of the London office, traditionally the second person in the company, since 2006 has been occupied by oil trader Alex Bird, who for many years oversaw the oil sector in Russia.

1993: Traders buy the company from founder

Mark Rich ran the empire he created until 1993. By that time, the 60-year-old founder of the company was no longer as energetic as 20 years ago, he was painfully experiencing a divorce from his wife Denise, whom, according to some reports, paid $200 million in compensation, and, as they say in the company, lost his previous grip. In addition, the very fact that the company was led by a fugitive from American justice blocked the company's access to the most monetary American consumers of raw materials. This ended with the "velvet revolution": a group of chief traders led by aluminum specialist Willy Strothotte and "oilmen" Dani Dreyfus and Ari Silverberg convinced Rich to resign.

Rich sold his stake to the company's management (which, according to various estimates, ranged from 75% to 80%). The calculation of the "revolutionaries" turned out to be correct: shortly after the resignation of the founder, the company was able to open a fourth head office - in the USA, in Stamford (Connecticut). Rich's entire package was shared by leading traders. Now "none belonged to either the controlling or simply the prevailing package." "First among equals" was new chief executive Willy Strothotte. In 1994, the company was renamed Glencore International AG. Mark Rich himself engaged in investments, opening a new company with an old name, Marc Rich Investments.

Swiss raw materials company Xstrata, which Glencore managers started in 1996, has grown over 10 years into one of the largest mining groups in the world, operating in Australia, Chile, South Africa and a dozen other countries, and has become the world's largest exporter of energy coal, a major producer of copper, nickel, ferrochrome and zinc.

Business in Russia

2022

Inability to withdraw from the capital of En + Group and Rosneft

By March 30, 2022, the Swiss Glencore came to the conclusion that it did not see realistic options for how to withdraw from the capital of En + Group and Rosneft against the background of Russia's special operation in Ukraine.

Russneft Capital Exit Plan

In February 2022, it became known that the Swiss trader Glencore, a long-term partner of Russneft, announced its withdrawal from the capital of the oil company. Its stake with an exchange value of almost 11 billion rubles. he can sell to the family structures of the founder of the oil company Mikhail Gutseriev.

2012: Long-term contract with Rosneft

Before the New Year 2013, Glencore and Vitol agreed on a long-term contract with Rosneft for 67 million tons of oil. The Russian company undertakes to supply these raw materials to traders within five years. In other words, Glencore and Vitol have contracted a fifth of Rosneft's annual exports going through Transneft. This was a big blow to the business of another trader - Gunvor.

Already in 2013, it turned out that the shares between Glencore and Vitol would be distributed unevenly. According to the same Reuters agency, Glencore will receive up to 70 percent of the total oil, which will make it one of the largest or even the largest trader of Russian oil.

2007: Co-owner of Russian Aluminum

Glencore did not miss its chance: in 2007, it, together with SUAL and Rusal, became one of the co-owners of the combined Russian Aluminum company (in exchange for its alumina plants in Ireland, Italy and Jamaica, as well as an aluminum plant in Sweden). Now it is very likely to claim the sale of the mentioned 15% of aluminum produced, which is 600,000 tons of metal per year for about $1.7 billion. But, according to sources in the Moscow representative office of the company, Glencore will earn only intermediary interest on this aluminum.

For 2007, Glencore is not a monopoly or even the largest merchant of Russian raw materials, as in the early 1990s. For her, this may be a Russia loss, but any other trader would surely be happy to take the place in the commodity market occupied by the "loser" Glencore.

2003: Co-founder of Russneft

Glencore had only a stake in the small Nobel Oil, which produces oil in the north of the Komi Republic: the Swiss company was afraid to invade this dangerous industry of the Russian economy for foreign investors. But in 2003, Glencore allocated to the owner of the Russneft oil company Mikhail Gutseriev, according to estimates, at least $300 million for the purchase of new fields, receiving in return from 40% to 49% in three production subsidiaries of the oil company: Varioganneft, Ulyanovskneft and Nafta-Ulyanovsk.

Why? The company needed new oil, says one of Forbes' interlocutors in the Moscow office of Glencore (2007). The company has lost supplies, Yukos"near-state" oil workers prefer to deal with the trading company Gunvor, Gennady Timchenko an old acquaintance of the president... Putin According to the manager of the Moscow office of Glencore, the Swiss company does not interfere in the management of Russneft, does not claim dividends, content only with the fact that all the company's export oil passes through Glencore (Russneft has been exporting about 66% of oil produced in recent years worth about $2.5 billion a year).

Investments turned out to be really risky: in November 2006, the Prosecutor General's Office opened criminal cases on the fact of illegal entrepreneurship against several subsidiaries of NK Russneft, accusing them of tax evasion, and in January 2007 a criminal case appeared on the fact of tax evasion by Russneft itself. Law enforcement agencies were charged with tax evasion and illegal entrepreneurship and Gutseriev. "Gutseriev promised to solve everything," admitted an employee of the Moscow office of Glencore even before the latest events, "but there are rumors that everything can be sold to some state-owned company."

It seems that Glencore's role in Russian oil exports seriously worries the company's management. "In 2006, Glencore transported about 34 million tons of oil and petroleum products from Russia," said Lottie Grenacher, a spokeswoman for the company. In addition to Russneft, Glencore sells oil from Tatneft, Bashneft, TNK-BP, as well as a number of small companies, she added.

Times have changed. By 2007, in order to get raw materials for export, you need to negotiate not with the directors of the plants. With all its gigantic resources and capabilities, Glencore cannot compare with the country's main oil trader during this period - Gunvor, controlled by President Putin's former colleague Gennady Timchenko, which sells, according to estimates, from 70 million tons to 80 million tons of Russian oil per year for $32-37 billion (for reference: all Russian exports in 2006 - 248 million tons).

"Glencore are foreigners, and from a certain point it ruined their lives," says the manager of one of the competing firms. - They have exits to Polyanka (street in Moscow, where the main office of Transneft is located. - Forbes), but above - no^[5].

2000: Sale of aluminum "Rusal"

Glencore sold all its industrial assets to Russian companies by the early 2000s. In 2000, Glencore got a chance to regain its role as the biggest exporter of Russian aluminum: the worst competitor, the Trans World group, had been driven out of Russia by this point. Its factories were bought by Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. Together with Oleg Deripaska, they created Russian Aluminum. The newborn aluminum company had virtually no sales network of its own abroad, so about 80% of exports had to be carried out through Western traders.

"At first it was difficult for them, and in the first two years after the formation of Rusal, Glencore sold a fairly large amount of their aluminum," says Vishnevsky and immediately makes a reservation: "The margin, however, was completely different already."

Rusal CEO Alexander Bulygin in his first interview after his appointment announced his intention to reduce dependence on traders and fulfilled his promise: in 2006, their share in the company's sales fell to 15%.

Early 1990s: Aluminum, tolling, super-profits

Contacts with Russia intensified in the 1990s. The company took advantage of the confusion that occurred after the collapse of the USSR, and bought up a lot of raw materials at extremely low prices during this period.

"Ours didn't understand market trade yet, the factories didn't have money, they asked the banks, but the banks didn't take aluminium as collateral. Marc Rich came with money and took aluminum, "- recalls in an interview with Forbes businessman Igor Vishnevsky, in the early 1990s the head of the aluminum department, and from 1998 to 2003 - the entire Moscow representative office of Glencore International

The domestic price of aluminum was 5-10% of its market price in the West, and a significant part of the difference settled on the accounts of the Swiss firm. The rate of profit of Marc Rich on operations with Russian raw materials in the early 1990s is not taken to name anyone, they say only that it was measured by hundreds of percent.

As soon as in 1992, by decree of President Boris Yeltsin, tolling was allowed - the processing by Russian enterprises of foreign lent raw materials for a agreed fee, Marc Rich adopted this tool for extracting super profits. A high-ranking manager of one of the Russian commodity companies, who worked for the Swiss 15 years ago, tells about the practice usual for that time:

"Imported alumina, not subject to taxes, paid only VAT on the cost of processing, which could always be underestimated by agreeing with the plant. And officials were simply paid rent and transported almost all aluminum for export. "

In the early 1990s, thanks to Russian tolling, a third of all aluminum to the global stock market, according to the Washington Post, was supplied by Marc Rich + Co.

The Moscow office of the company gradually began to develop: in 1992, about 20 people worked in it, and after a year and a half - more than a hundred.

MGIMO graduates and former foreign traders came with their own contracts," recalls Mechel CEO Alexei Ivanushkin, who rose to the rank of head of the ferroalloy department in the Moscow office of Marc Rich.

The company willingly hired people with hardware experience: the father of the same Ivanushkin Gennady, a retired consul in Geneva and retired KGB general, headed the Russian security service of the Swiss company.

From 1989 to 1993, Marc Rich was one of the largest buyers of Russian oil, aluminum, copper, zinc, lead, coal, and a supplier of grain and sugar to the country. According to various sources, the company's annual trade turnover with the countries of the former USSR amounted to $3-4 billion. For comparison: all Russian exports in 1993 amounted to $43 billion. But in the same 1993, the company's position was shaken.

Traders are the backbone of the company around the world. In 1998-2003, the Moscow office was headed by the "aluminum" trader Igor Vishnevsky, reporting to the executive director and also to the aluminum transaction specialist Willy Strothott in Baar. For 2007, the formal head of the Moscow headquarters is lawyer Yana Tikhonova, while neither traders nor financiers are subordinate to her. According to Forbes sources, in fact, the office is headed by oil trader Vladimir Shcherbak, who in turn reports to the head of the London oil office of Glencore Alex Berda.

Late 1990s: Bet on production, failure

While traders shared power after the resignation of Mark Rich, privatization was unfolding in Russia, the first financial and industrial groups were formed. The enterprises had owners who began to rake all foreign trade operations for themselves, not wanting to give them to third-party traders. "At some point, our business was simply disappearing," recalls Alexei Ivanushkin.

"In 1993, we decided to create an enterprise and went to all the largest firms," Yuri Shlyafshtein, the former head of the board of directors of the Bratsk aluminum plant, recalled in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper. "Marc Rich told us: You only have one opportunity - to trade through us because we control this market." But Schleifstein found another opportunity - he agreed with brothers David and Simon Ruben, owners of the much smaller rival firm Trans World Metals. Rubens took the brothers Lev and Mikhail Chernykh to the share of Russian entrepreneurs, who helped them seize control over the export of the second largest Russian aluminum producer, KrAZ, and then over the Sayansky and Novokuznetsk aluminum plants. And by the mid-1990s, Glencore became only the second exporter of aluminum from Russia, losing leadership to the Rubens and Cherny. In 1996, the peak in terms of aluminum exports from Russia, Glencore exported 750,000 tons of metal, and Trans World - more than a million, recalls Vishnevsky.

The new Glencore management in 1995-1996 fundamentally changes the company's strategy: if earlier it was an almost pure trader who acquired industrial assets mainly to gain access to products, now the company begins to participate in the management of enterprises. In Russia, Glencore buys large packages of metallurgical plants: Chelyabinsk metal plant, Sredneuralsky smelter, Dalpolimetal. The company is trying to compensate for the lost time with significant investments in production, but the venture fails.

And in 1998, the Russian division of Glencore completely stops working for the future. After the collapse of financial markets in August, the head office gave the command to sell off Russian assets and focus on knocking debts out of suppliers. Not everything was returned: for example, the $25 million allocated for the purchase of oil from the infamous Kremlin reconstruction and trade with Iraq RAO MES disappeared irrevocably.

"Not a single ton of oil has been delivered, all the money has been stolen," laments one former Glencore oil trader.

1980s: Zerno in exchange for oil

In the 1980s, the company quickly established ties in the Soviet Union and began to supply products from the United States there, also bypassing the sanctions imposed by President Ronald Reagan.

Although Marc Rich traded on the full range of exchange and commodity commodities, its greatest interest has always been in oil. Marc Rich had almost no oil contracts with the USSR, and it was more difficult to get into the oil export system than in the processing of aluminum: it was monopolized by the Soyuznefteexport foreign trade association created back in the 1920s. To get oil, Marc Rich had to create production JVs, supplying equipment and upgrading several refineries in Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The difference between the internal and external price of petroleum products more than covered the costs.

The case, however, was not limited to investments. The technology of concluding profitable oil contracts was tested by partners back in 1973, when they, according to BusinessWeek magazine, bought a luxurious mansion in the south of France and settled expensive Paris prostitutes there. Negotiations with the Arab sheikhs were held here. "Method for Sheikhs" was successfully tested on the "first Soviet millionaire" Artem Tarasov. In his memoir, The Millionaire, he describes how in the late 1980s a suite in a luxurious London hotel was specially shot for him, a yacht and orchestra rented, as Mark Rich's people drove him around nightclubs, offering to take any dancer into the room - the firm pays for everything. Tarasov not only signed a contract favorable for the Swiss company, but also brought it to the then Minister of the Bread Industry of the USSR, and soon Marc Rich began to barter Argentine grain for Russian oil products.

1974: Foundation of Marc Rich + Co AG

Glencore's headquarters (an acronym for Global Energy Commodities and Resources) is located in Baar, a town in the tiny Swiss canton of Zug (the entire canton is four times the area of ​ ​ Moscow), formerly one of the poorest in the confederation. It was poverty that forced the canton authorities in the 1960s to gain the right to pass extremely liberal tax legislation favorable for international holdings operating outside Switzerland: they do not pay income tax in the canton (they still have to pay federal tax). The EU authorities are still indignant about the "offshore zone" in Zug, but the companies registered there enjoy the advantages of both tax-free jurisdiction and the status of a solid Swiss company, and not a "laundry" from the Cayman Islands.

It was in Zug in April 1974 that 39-year-old businessman Mark Rich, together with partner Pincus Green, created Marc Rich + Co AG. Former employees of the American trading giant Philipp Brothers decided to leave for free bread.

Competition in financial markets was then intense, especially since America was experiencing the stagflation of the 1970s and the size of the "general pie" for traders was significantly reduced. To make money, newcomers often had to adopt revolutionary and sometimes extremely dubious methods from the point of view of the law. Rich and Green decided to bet on unpromising, in terms of trading at that time, oil.

Until the 1970s, there was no oil market in the world as such. Almost all deliveries were made under long-term contracts that oil companies concluded with customers themselves or with the help of affiliated structures. The loophole that allowed to bypass this system was the Arab oil embargo imposed on the United States in 1973. Some Arab oil states or representatives of their royal families began to look for ways to bypass the ban they themselves imposed a few months after the decision was made public.

Rich provided them with such an opportunity, personally organizing the trade in oil coming from the Middle East. His company itself negotiated with partners, chartered tankers itself and sold purchased oil in America. Given that hydrocarbons in the Persian Gulf could still be purchased at a price slightly higher than their cost, and prices went through the roof in the United States, business went uphill rapidly.

Quickly enough, Rich & Co had imitators, including quite successful ones, so it turned out to be unrealistic to maintain a monopoly position in the market. Then the famous trader went even further. In the 1970s, he managed to make good ties with Iran. They survived even after the Islamic Revolution took place in the country, and America was declared the Greater Satan. The dislike of the Persians did not apply to Rich and his company - they traded with the American both before and continued to trade.

However, now an embargo on the trade in hydrocarbons has been imposed on the other side. After the seizure by Muslim fanatics of the American embassy in Tehran, the United States imposed sanctions on trade with Iran - accordingly, conducting any business with this state could become the basis for criminal prosecution. But it didn't faze Rich. On the contrary, he appreciated the possibility of obtaining super-profits, because Iran, which not only fell into international isolation, but also fell victim to the aggression of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, was ready to sell its oil for nothing.

During the 1973 oil crisis, the company made money by driving oil contracts through dozens of offshore firms it created.

Rich & Co purchased nickel and gold from Cuba, traded with disgraced Libya and with South Africa when it was under international sanctions due to apartheid policies.

Marc Rich remained the only company supplying grain to the USSR, despite an international ban due to the war in Afghanistan.

Notes