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backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
Fri May 10, 2019, 04:45 PM May 2019

Any of you know anything about the RDIF? (Russia)

Last edited Wed Jun 12, 2019, 11:55 PM - Edit history (1)

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is Russia's sovereign wealth fund established in June 2011 by the Russian government to make equity investments in high-growth sectors of the Russian economy. RDIF's mandate is to co-invest alongside large and sophisticated global investors, thus acting as a catalyst for foreign direct investment in Russia.[1] The CEO of RDIF is Kirill Dmitriev.

History
Edit

RDIF was founded in June 2011 under the leadership of both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as part of a broader initiative to improve the investment climate of Russia and establish Moscow as an international financial center. RDIF is managed by a team of private equity investors with broad international and Russian experience.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Direct_Investment_Fund


Stephen A. Schwarzman is on it's International Advisory Board. He's also a friend of trump's and is the Chair of his Strategic and Policy Forum.


Schwarzman's son, Teddy's law firm he worked at got fined for working with Manafort......!!!
2015 — Skadden becomes the first law firm to advise on more than $1 trillion worth of deals in a single year.[14]
2019 — Skadden pays $4.6 million settlement to the Department of Justice over Skadden's failure to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registrations Act.[15] The $4.6 million represents Skadden's fees for up to 950 hours of work with Paul Manafort and the Ukrainian government in 2012, which Skadden had initially told the Department of Justice had been billed at 100 Ukrainian hryvnias ($13) per hour.[16] As of May 2019, Skadden, along with Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group, have been under investigation by the Southern District of New York (SNDY) for possible lobbying violations regarding former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.[17]



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skadden

This law firm made 1 Trillion dollars in 2015, becoming the first law firm to ever make that much in a year...

I've don't remember any news about RDIF, so my research is kind of at a stand still. I'm tired of our corporate overlords!


Side note: Schwarzman is also co-founder of Blackstone Group along with Pete Peterson (Lehman Brothers).
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Any of you know anything about the RDIF? (Russia) (Original Post) backtoblue May 2019 OP
I thought it was a lesser known medical condition I'd never heard of before. n/t cynatnite May 2019 #1
LOL! 2naSalit May 2019 #2
Sticking my tongue out at the both of yens! backtoblue May 2019 #3
Adding info, so I can journal for further research backtoblue May 2019 #4
Kicking for info and to journal backtoblue Aug 2019 #5
Why Yale Should Shun Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman backtoblue Jun 2020 #6
Schwartzman and China, RDIF backtoblue Aug 2020 #7
Trump donor (Blackstone Group) buys large stake in Ancestry.com backtoblue Aug 2020 #8

backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
4. Adding info, so I can journal for further research
Sun May 12, 2019, 09:50 PM
May 2019
A new Kremlin-backed infrastructure financing entity — the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) — opens in 2011. Russians sign up several high-powered international advisors, including Schwarzman, and another Kushner lender, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management.

Putin hand-picks Kirill Dmitriev — a former Goldman Sachs banker — to run the RDIF, initially set up as a part of the VEB, a bank that will later figure in the investigation of Russian help to Trump’s campaign.


Schwarzman’s firm begins lending to the Kushner Companies. Over time, it will become one of the firm’s biggest lenders, providing more than $400 million in financing in four separate deals.

Blackstone, along with Deutsche Bank AG, provides loans for Kushner and CIM Group to purchase a Manhattan office building at 2 Rector Street.

Related: Deutsche Bank: A Global Bank for Oligarchs — American and Russian, Part 1

October

The Kushner Companies and real estate investment firm RFR purchase five of six Jehovah’s Witnesses warehouse and printing properties in Dumbo — an upscale Brooklyn neighborhood — for $375 million, in what becomes the borough’s largest transaction of the year. Natixis Real Estate Capital loans Kushner’s consortium, which included Blackstone, $249 million to finance the deal. (Blackstone was among the undisclosed partners.)


https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/03/28/trump-kushner-russia-and-the-blackstone-mystery/

https://medium.com/@JamesFourM/trump-putin-and-the-mob-part-7-jared-kushner-erik-prince-the-secret-meetings-connecting-them-62cef0f9ffd6

backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
5. Kicking for info and to journal
Wed Aug 28, 2019, 09:22 AM
Aug 2019

Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2020, 11:39 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=12415568

Trump donor, Blackstone CEO Is Driving Force Behind Amazon Deforestation


Snip

TWO BRAZILIAN FIRMS owned by a top donor to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are significantly responsible for the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest, carnage that has developed into raging fires that have captivated global attention.

The companies have wrested control of land, deforested it, and helped build a controversial highway to their new terminal in the one-time jungle, all to facilitate the cultivation and export of grain and soybeans. The shipping terminal at Miritituba, deep in the Amazon in the Brazilian state of Pará, allows growers to load soybeans on barges, which will then sail to a larger port before the cargo is shipped around the world.

The Amazon terminal is run by Hidrovias do Brasil, a company that is owned in large part by Blackstone, a major U.S. investment firm. Another Blackstone company, Pátria Investimentos, owns more than 50 percent of Hidrovias, while Blackstone itself directly owns an additional roughly 10 percent stake. Blackstone co-founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman is a close ally of Trump and has donated millions of dollars to McConnell in recent years.


Snip


https://theintercept.com/2019/08/27/amazon-rainforest-fire-blackstone/

backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
6. Why Yale Should Shun Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman
Tue Jun 23, 2020, 09:24 AM
Jun 2020

Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2020, 11:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Why Yale Should Shun Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213639280#post5

Snip

Blackstone has profited from damaging society and the economy by moving in on the home-rental market and shifting its private debt obligations to the taxpayers. As one of the largest owners of rental homes in the country, with nearly double the average eviction rate, Blackstone has been transforming the homes into CDO’s (debt obligations — mortgages, bonds, and other loans pooled as speculative investments for Schwarzman). This is virtually the tactic that engineered the Great Recession. Thanks to Schwarzman, the federal Fannie Mae is underwriting the Blackstone project.


Snip

(Hat -tip to still one)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/02/17/why-yale-should-shun-blackstone-ceo-steve-schwartzman/

backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
7. Schwartzman and China, RDIF
Thu Aug 6, 2020, 11:11 AM
Aug 2020
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=13862269


Article is FROM BLOOMBERG: Feb 2020, but last night CALPERS Chief Investment Officer immediately resigned.


https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-02-25/how-chinese-espionage-fears-ensnared-calpers-top-money-man?__twitter_impression=true

Calpers Top Money Man Is Swept Up in Chinese Espionage Fears

Schwarzman, Marks defend CIO Ben Meng as allegiance questioned
Niall Ferguson warned Meng of backlash amid Trump trade war
It was the kind of warning familiar to Fox viewers in the Trump era: An immigrant posed a danger to U.S. security.

Only this time, the purported threat wasn’t part of an “invasion” from Mexico or Guatemala -- he controls the fate of the retirement investments of millions of people in California.

--------

HOWEVER , the name to consider here is STEVE SCHWARZMAN

THIS Steve Schwarzman:

Snip



Hat tip to Budi

backtoblue

(11,323 posts)
8. Trump donor (Blackstone Group) buys large stake in Ancestry.com
Fri Aug 7, 2020, 08:08 AM
Aug 2020
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213864268

Trump donor (Blackstone Group) buys large stake in Ancestry.com
https://gizmodo.com/worlds-biggest-landlord-buys-worlds-biggest-genealogy-w-1844630685

The Blackstone Group will buy a majority stake in the genealogy website Ancestry.com in a deal worth $4.7 billion, according to a press release published Wednesday. Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, is the world’s largest landlord and Ancestry is the world’s largest genealogy website, with over 6 billion records on family history in the U.S. alone. Ancestry also provides DNA testing and has over 18 million DNA test results in its databases.

snip

The CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, contributes significant sums of money to the Republican Party and has close ties to the Trump regime, serving on President Trump’s business advisory council in 2017. Schwarzman previously called proposed tax hikes on businesses during the Barack Obama administration, “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,” something that he later apologized for.


Hat tip to Dem2theMax
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