{"id":24308,"date":"2015-03-15T21:01:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T20:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igorcarlfaberge.com\/fighting-a-russian-billionaire-for-the-faberge-brand\/"},"modified":"2015-03-15T21:01:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T20:01:35","slug":"fighting-a-russian-billionaire-for-the-faberge-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igorcarlfaberge.com\/en\/fighting-a-russian-billionaire-for-the-faberge-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting A Russian Billionaire For The Faberge Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Gilbertson woke up on New Year\u2019s Day 2007 with a plan that he knew could cause him trouble. The former chief of BHP Billiton, the world\u2019s biggest mining company, was about to purchase the Faberg\u00e9 name from Unilever, the consumer goods conglomerate. His goal was to rejuvenate the iconic trademark, converting it into a luxury brand that sold gemstones and other accessory products. <\/p>\n

The deal was for only $38 million, peanuts in his world. So why was Gilbertson anxious, as he later described himself in court documents? Because his most important business partner, Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, would not be included in the deal. <\/p>\n

Gilbertson\u2019s anxiety turned out to be warranted. Feeling cheated and secretly cut out of the deal, Vekselberg later sued Gilbertson in the Cayman Islands, a suit that he has doggedly pursued and is slated for trial next year. <\/p>\n

The Faberg\u00e9 deal and the rupture it caused had other consequences. Vekselberg was about to install Gilbertson as chairman of the world\u2019s biggest aluminum corporation when Vekselberg finished merging his aluminum company, Sual, with Rusal. He didn\u2019t get the job. Neither man would comment. <\/p>\n

The lesson here: Don\u2019t mess with the emotions that the Faberg\u00e9 name engenders in certain people. Vekselberg is the biggest individual owner of Faberg\u00e9 eggs, having bought nine of them from the Forbes family in 2004, repatriating them to Russia. Vekselberg had intended, according to court papers, to give the Faberg\u00e9 brand to his wife as a Christmas present\u2013perhaps echoing Czar Alexander III\u2019s decision to give his wife an Easter egg made of precious metals in 1885 that launched the imperial eggs. <\/p>\n

Vekselberg, 53, and Gilbertson, 67, have known each other since 2004, when Vekselberg convinced Gilbertson to run Sual, the aluminum producer Vekselberg cobbled together in the 1990s. Around the same time Gilbertson started a U.K. investment firm, Pallinghurst Resources, backed by a $150 million commitment from Vekselberg. One of Gilbertson\u2019s earliest projects: purchase the Faberg\u00e9 trademark and intellectual property rights from Unilever. <\/p>\n

But Gilbertson claims that days before the deal with Unilever Vekselberg demanded that in return for his funding he wanted to own the intellectual property himself and most of a company that would build a business around it. This last-minute demand was intended to increase \u201cthe likelihood of my agreeing to their demands,\u201d Gilbertson says in a court-filed affidavit. So he says that instead he rounded up other investors. \u201cI was concerned that Mr. Vekselberg would ruthlessly seek to drive his own agenda,\u201d he said in a court-filed affidavit. <\/p>\n

Vekselberg contends in his suit that this maneuver violated Gilbertson\u2019s fiduciary obligations to Vekselberg\u2019s investment vehicle, Renova Resources Private Equity. It amounted to improperly directing investment opportunities to businesses in which Renova Resources had no ownership interest. <\/p>\n

The litigation hasn\u2019t stopped Gilbertson from building the Faberg\u00e9 business. He\u2019s gotten his investors to spend $60 million, opening a storefront in Geneva and launching two new collections that include jewelry priced for $7 million. His investment firm currently values Faberg\u00e9 at $173 million, but Gilbertson predicts it will soon be worth $1 billion. <\/p>\n

\u00a9Nathan Vardi<\/a>, Forbes Staff – Original article (source)<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Gilbertson woke up on New Year\u2019s Day 2007 with a plan that he knew could cause him trouble. The former chief of BHP Billiton, the world\u2019s biggest mining company, was about to purchase the Faberg\u00e9 name from Unilever, the consumer goods conglomerate. His goal was to rejuvenate the iconic trademark, converting it into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[67,34],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-24308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized-2","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFighting A Russian Billionaire For The Faberge Brand - Igor Carl Faberg\u00e9<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fighting A Russian Billionaire For The Faberge Brand - Igor Carl Faberg\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian Gilbertson woke up on New Year\u2019s Day 2007 with a plan that he knew could cause him trouble. 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