Kazakh Billionaire Buys English Soccer Club

Mikheil Lomtadze

Kazakhstan-based billionaire Mikheil Lomtadze has bought England's Wycombe Wanderers soccer club. Lomtadze's Blue Ocean Partners Ltd. paid an undisclosed amount for a 90 percent stake in the club, which plays in England's League One, the third level of the English football league system, the BBC reported on May 5. The 48-year old Georgia-born Lomtadze is the chief executive of Kaspi.kz, the biggest fintech and payments group in Kazakhstan. In its 2024 list of billionaires, Forbes listed Lomtadze 581st, with an estimated net worth of $5.7 billion. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.