Mammoth windfall for Abramovich

Roman Abramovich will have even more money to spend on new Chelsea players after taking hundreds of millions of pounds out of his oil company.

His Sibneft oil business is paying its shareholders a £619 million dividend. Abramovich, who, with a small band of partners owns 92 per cent of the company, will take the lion's share of the payment.

The deal adds to the mogul's existing wealth of nearly £5billion and highlights the fact that his £140m takeover bid for Chelsea was pin-money.

It also underpins the vastly deep pockets the 36-year-old has to buy new players for the club.

Furthermore, today's dividend is only the half-year payment to shareholders, who will receive a further massive payment in another six months.

Sibneft's shares leaped after the announcement. On the Russian stockmarket, the shares were up 20.2 per cent, adding to Abramovich's wealth on paper. Despite Sibneft's reputation for paying vast dividends, shareholders and analysts were stunned at the payout.

"This is much better than expected," said Trust investment bank sales trader Olga Avdeyeva.

Although Abramovich's financial successes seem to know no bounds the takeover at Chelsea attracted the interest of the Financial Services Authority, which is probing the shareholdings of the club in the run-up to its recent takeover.

The FSA yesterday launched another major probe into the ownership of Chelsea shares prior to Abramovich's takeover prompting chairman Ken Bates to describe the FSA as "little worms".