Exclusive-How a Russian billionaire shielded assets from European sanctions

FILE PHOTO: Russian billionaire Andrei Melnichenko attends a session during the Week of Russian Business, organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo

ISTANBUL/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko ceded ownership of two of the world's largest coal and fertilizers companies to his wife the day before he was sanctioned by the European Union, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Melnichenko, who built his fortune in the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, gave up his stakes in the coal producer SUEK AO and fertilizer group EuroChem Group AG on March 8, the day of his 50th birthday, leaving his wife, Aleksandra Melnichenko, the beneficial ownership of the companies, the people said.