‘Kremlin’s Puppet’ Leadership Shifts Weeks After Trump Admin Threat

Global commodities firm Gunvor Group announced that its CEO is stepping down amid a management-led buyout on Monday, just weeks after the Trump administration denounced the Swiss energy giant as the “Kremlin’s puppet.”

Majority owner, co-founder and Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Törnqvist is selling all his Gunvor holdings, with Americas head Gary Pedersen to become Gunvor’s CEO. A group of current employees are slated to acquire the firm, according to the company’s Monday announcement.

The insider buyout was conceived in 2022 during an “all-hands retreat in Morocco,” though the changes come mere weeks after the Treasury Department sharply criticized Gunvor and threatened to block its operations on Nov. 6 following reports the firm would buy assets from a major Russian energy company for $22 billion. Soon after the Treasury’s warning, Gunvor reproached the Trump administration’s characterization and said in an X post that it was dropping its bid to purchase Lukoil assets.

“The time is right for this transition. A generational shift has well been underway, and we have the financial strength, liquidity, and depth of leadership to continue to advance our global growth strategy,” Pedersen said in a Monday statement. “Our goal is to uphold our leading role as a reliable and competitive participant in the global energy markets — today and well into the future.”

Törnqvist co-founded Gunvor in 2000, which was previously co-owned by Gennady Timchenko, who reportedly had ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, though he sold his stake in 2014.

A company spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an email that the Treasury statement was a “shock” as Gunvor has worked to distance itself from Russia over the last decade and condemned the Russia-Ukraine war. The spokesman continued to say that after the Treasury’s “unfounded” comments, Gunvor’s leadership seized the opportunity to advance the restructuring plan.

“We have been in talks with Torbjorn, who owned 86% of the company, about a management buy-out for a while, as early as 2022, making hires along the way to deepen that talent within our leadership team,” the spokesman told the DCNF. “To establish a definitive reset and a path forward for our company — in light of the impossible distraction of these misperceptions — we decided to advance the buy-out process.”

Notably, Gunvor has held talks weighing new investment in the American oil and gas sector, according to two sources familiar with the matter that spoke with Reuters.