Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

I didn’t have to put a complete stop to the stealing, I just needed to create enough pressure for marginal change. The share prices of the companies were so undervalued that any improvement would push up their valuations dramatically. This naming-and-shaming approach turned out to be remarkably profitable, and the Hermitage Fund became one of the best performing funds in the world. At the height of my career, I was responsible for $4.5 billion invested in Russian equities. But, of course, exposing corrupt oligarchs didn’t make me very popular in Russia. And in time, my actions led to a cascade of disastrous consequences. In November 2005, Putin declared me a threat to national security and expelled me from Russia. In order to protect my clients’ assets, my team liquidated the fund’s holdings in Russia. I also evacuated my team and their families, including our chief operating officer, Ivan Cherkasov, and our head of research, Vadim Kleiner, to London. This evacuation turned out to be prescient.