Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt set sail on a superyacht abandoned within the Caribbean by a Russian oligarch after the invasion of Ukraine, winning a bid of $67.6 million at Friday’s auction.
Schmidt bought the 267-foot yacht Alfa Nero after it was moored in Antigua by Andrei Guryev, a Russian billionaire who was hit with sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department last yr, in response to Bloomberg news.
The Treasury Department claimed that Guriev, who made his fortune within the fertilizer industry and is taken into account near Russian President Vladimir Putin, initially bought the yacht for $120 million in 2014, however the Russian oligarch denied these claims.
The previous Google boss, whose net price was valued at $25 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Friday, “won the auction this morning in a very transparent process,” in response to Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua’s US ambassador.
The vessel, which has been described by its manufacturer Oceanco as “one in all the world’s most iconic and award-winning yachts,” includes amenities corresponding to a baby piano and a swimming pool that might be converted right into a helipad, Bloomberg News reports.
Antigua and Barbuda was desperate to sell the ship on account of rising maintenance costs of roughly $112,000 per 30 days, which had collected while she was in Falmouth harbour.
Schmidt served as Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011, a period of rapid growth for the California-based tech company.
He later became the manager chairman of Google, and in 2015 of its recent parent company Alphabet, before stepping down as chairman in 2018.
The US and other Western countries imposed sanctions on several Russian oligarchs after Putin invaded Ukraine last yr.
An Antiguan port official told Bloomberg News that Guryev’s daughter filed a last-minute court order claiming to be the owner of the yacht.