Fugitive Kremlin critic's car empire put on sale

A company that runs one of Russia's largest car dealerships on Friday announced plans to sell after its Kremlin critic founder, a former lawmaker, fled abroad and now faces arrest if he returns.

The successful Rolf group of dealerships selling imported cars was founded in 1991 by Sergei Petrov, who is now reportedly living in Austria.

The dealership's only shareholder, Cyprus-based Delance Limited, said in a statement that it was examining the group's position "in relation to the sale of 100 per cent of Rolf shares".

Vedomosti business daily reported that Delance Limited is owned by Petrov's son.

In September a Russian court issued an arrest warrant for Petrov as part of a criminal probe.

Investigators accused him and his company managers of illegally syphoning off 4 billion rubles (USD 63.5 million) and taking the money out of Russia in 2014.

Petrov served as a lawmaker in the Russian parliament between 2007 and 2016 and was seen as one of the few relatively independent-minded deputies in the country's rubber-stamp legislature.

He did not vote for a number of controversial Kremlin initiatives and did not take part in a vote on the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

When Russia opened a probe into Petrov in June he complained of a possible "raid" to the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, adding that he did not intend to leave the country.

On Friday, Petrov backed the sale of the company in comments to Business FM radio station, saying "it will be better for the business if there aren't any shareholders who are viewed as toxic by the market".

He said that selling the company would not make any difference to the criminal probe, which he hoped "will conclude there was no crime".

A spokesman for the group told AFP that "the question of selling the business has been under review for a number of years".