Entrepreneur Filipović’s Russian Connection to the Sheikh?

Krešimir Filipović (46), a little-known Russian-Croatian entrepreneur allegedly involved in a half-billion-euro acquisition of shares in Fortenova, has risen from an anonymous engineer in Zagreb’s Mamutica to a powerful Russian industrialist, writes Jutarnji list on Monday.

The newspaper also states that Filipović has a place in the company of Vladimir Putin and that, according to Russian sources, he is the life partner of the most powerful Moscow politician, Anastasia Rakova.

This was revealed by Jutarnji list while investigating the business and private biographies of two Croatian entrepreneurs with Russian connections, Krešimir Filipović and Miodrag Borojević, who are placed at the center of the business thriller in Fortenova as alleged aides to the mysterious Arab investor Saif Alketbi.

Recall that the little-known Croatian entrepreneurs Filipović and Borojević were in negotiations with German Gref, the head of Russian Sberbank, an oligarch and Putin’s financial operative, who oversaw the agreed transaction of 500 million euros from Saif Alketbi for the Russian stake in Fortenova of 44 percent.

Filipović is reportedly the majority owner and director of the powerful Russian construction company Velestroj, based in Moscow, allegedly well-connected with the Russian authorities from whom he receives contracts and, according to Russian media reports, the life partner of Anastasia Rakova, deputy mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, with whom he has children and a property in an elite Moscow residential neighborhood on Fadejeva Street, where apartments reportedly cost up to 1.5 million euros. Therefore, he is referred to in Russian media as ‘Vladimir Putin’s Balkan wallet.’

According to sources from Jutarnji, it is speculated that his company Velestroj, which has worked on many important state projects throughout Russia, is now facing significant financial losses. Since these losses are measured in hundreds of millions of euros, it is suspected that the engagement of the Arab sheikh to purchase Sberbank’s stake in Fortenova served to resolve Filipović’s claims.

Borojević, on the other hand, is Filipović’s business partner, a recent member of the Supervisory Board of Fortenova Group, and previously the head of the Russian supermarket chain and food retailer O’Key Group based in Moscow. He has emphasized that he has good connections with Russian Sberbank. Borojević’s lawyer Ljubo Pavasović Visković claims that his role in the negotiations regarding Fortenova ‘was not significant at all.’

Nevertheless, the connections between Filipović and Borojević are clear. They launched the company Fil Adria Turist, into which Filipović reportedly invested several hundred million kuna from his Russian companies between 2010 and 2016, as we learn. It served, among other things, for the purchase of the Mali Lošinj resort.

Regarding real estate business, they invested about 30 million euros in land in Središće, Martinovka, and Zadar, write Jutarnji list journalists Filip Pavić, Krešimir Žabec, and Marko Špoljar.