Chelsea chief sells up in Russia

CHELSEA football club owner Roman Abramovich has sold his last major industrial stake in Russia, signalling that he may be moving permanently to Britain.

Abramovich has made £1.8bn from his half share in Russia's biggest aluminium company, RusAl, taking his total wealth to £8.2bn and consolidating his position as the world's richest man under 40.

The 36-year-old made his billions in Russian oil and other industries following the break-up of the Soviet Union. He has been disposing of assets since soon after the arrest of one of the key shareholders of oil giant Sibneft in July.

This year London-based Millhouse Capital, Abramovich's holding company, has sold its stakes in Aeroflot and Sibneft, which many believe is a precursor to him making Britain his permanent home.

He has said he will not stand for re-election as governor of the remote Chutkotka province in north-eastern Russia and is sending his children to school in England.

Abramovich, a Jewish orphan from southern Russia, spent much of his childhood in a grim five-storey apartment block.

Now his many properties include an apartment in Knightsbridge and a 450-acre, £12m estate in Rogate, West Sussex, complete with indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a five-lane bowling alley.

He acquired his stake in RusAl from oligarch Boris Berezovsky when he was forced into exile by President Vladimir Putin in 2000.

Abramovich, a protege of Berezovsky, was able to take control of Sibneft, Russia's fifth-largest oil producer.

However, with business conditions changing in Russia, and his Boris Yeltsin-era contacts of dwindling value, Abramovich has turned his attention abroad.