It’s often claimed that most of Mellon’s money was made in Russia. How accurate is such a claim?
According to some in depth research on the matter of Jim Mellon and Russia, Mellon did not make most of his money in Russia, and has had little involvement with Russian investments for many decades.
This is in stark contrast to many of the claims made about Mellon in the public.
Did Jim Mellon ever invest in Alrosa?
Alrosa is one of the largest diamond mining companies on earth. It has been claimed by Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian that Jim Mellon was an investor in Russian diamonds.
Russia has $600 billion in imminently refinanceable debt in US Dollars, basically the country is bust…
In an interview with Merryn Somerset Webb, Mellond escribes Russia as a petrol station, and that being its biggest problem.
In 2014, Jim Mellon informed readers not to touch Russia with a bargepole, and in 2015 claimed that capital controls were an almost certainty.
Jim Mellon clearly mentions the pitfalls and hazards of investing in Russian equities.
“The accounting is flim flam, depreciation is inadequate, the governance is woeful.“
In the above tweet, Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian claims that Jim Mellon was an “investor in Russian diamonds”.
This is in fact a lie.
The fund management group (Charlemagne), had a fund that invested in Russia. It also had funds that invested in many frontier and emerging markets right across the world, including Iran.
Charlemagne invested in a Russian diamond company, Alrosa.
So did a fund run by George Soros, and many other global investors.
Shares in Alrosa were first purchased by a fund run by Charlemagne in 2013, many, many years before the Brexit referendum.
Jim Mellon Russia: Jim Mellon and Russia 