Wealth
Usmanov is estimated to be among the world's 100 125 wealthiest individuals.
In 2007 and 2016 Usmanov settled two trusts for the estate planning purpose due to his poor health condition. The spokesperson said Usmanov was not the owner of the trusts he founded and had no right to control or manage its assets.
The assets of the trust include:
• Grade I listed Tudor mansion Sutton Place set in 120 hectares (300 acres) in Surrey that by some estimates is worth £10 million;
• Beechwood House, a Grade II listed Regency property in 4.5 ha (11 acres) of grounds in the London suburb of Highgate that by some estimates is worth £48 million;
• Aircraft A340-313X named Bourkhan;
• Yacht Dilbar, the current largest yacht in the world by gross tonnage (15,917 gt) and the 6th largest yacht by length measuring 156.0 m (512 ft). It is reported to have cost $800 million, employ 84 full-time crew members, and contain the largest indoor swimming pool installed on a superyacht at 180 cubic metres.
In 2016, the German shipyard Lürssen built the Dilbar yacht. The yacht was included in the irrevocable discretionary trust The Sister Trust, which Alisher Usmanov established for estate planning. Since then, the yacht has been owned and controlled by an independent trustee of this trust.
In 2017, Alisher Usmanov left The Sister Trust. His sister, Gulbakhor Ismailova, remained the only beneficiary of the trust.
At the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the Dilbar yacht was undergoing maintenance at the Lürssen shipyard in Hamburg. On March 2, 2022, Forbes reported that German authorities allegedly "seized" Dilbar as a yacht belonging to Alisher Usmanov.
On April 8, 2022, the EU included Gulbakhor Ismailova in the sanctions list, citing an investigation by the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, which allegedly established that Usmanov "transferred assets", including the Dilbar yacht, to Ismailova. The following was stated in the EU sanctions rationale: "Since 2017, Usmanov has no longer been a shareholder of this trust company. As a result, his sister, Ms. Gulbakhor Ismailova, has remained the sole beneficial owner of the Dilbar yacht".
The charter of the trust in which the yacht is held contained a clause on the automatic removal of any person from the list of beneficiaries immediately after being sanctioned. In this regard, after the imposition of sanctions, Ismailova was automatically excluded from the list of beneficiaries of the trust.
In September 2022, German investigatory authorities conducted a search of the Dilbar yacht.
In May 2023, the Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main ruled that the search of the Dilbar yacht conducted by German law enforcement agencies in September 2022 was illegal. The court ruled that the issued search warrants were unlawful. In October 2023, the court of Frankfurt am Main ruled that all items seized during the illegal search in 2022, including that of the Dilbar yacht, must be returned to their owners.
In March 2024, the statement by the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany including the publications on X in which it was stated that Ismailova was the "owner" of the Dilbar yacht were removed. The agency officially undertook to no longer disseminate those statements.
During the same period Ismailova signed an official waiver of receiving benefits from the trusts. That meant that she would not be able to restore her right to receive benefits from the trusts, including the trust in which the Dilbar yacht is held, even after lifting the sanctions.
In February 2025, Germany's largest news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) officially retracted its piece of news dated 2022, in which Ismailova was referred to as the owner of Dilbar. The agency recommended that all its media partners remove those publications to avoid legal claims.
On March 14, 2025, the EU Council removed Ismailova from the sanctions list.
On June 11, 2026, the court of Frankfurt am Main upheld the claim of the Lürssen shipyard and ruled that the Dilbar yacht could not be considered frozen under the EU sanctions regime, and the authorities failed to prove that Usmanov or his sister have any influence over the trust in which the yacht is held.
