Marc Rich Agrees to Sell Part of Trading Firm

Marc Rich, the commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Clinton, agreed to sell part of his trading firm to an affiliate of Alfa Group, a Russian oil and metals company. Crown Resources, the Alfa affiliate, plans to buy Marc Rich & Co. Investment, said Elliot Spitz, Crown’s chief executive. Marc Rich & Co. Holding, Rich’s holding company, will initially keep an interest in Crown. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Clinton pardoned Rich, 66, who fled to Switzerland after he was charged in 1983 with evading more than $48 million in taxes and violating U.S. sanctions by trading with Iran. His company, which trades metal and oil, had sales in 1999 of more than $6 billion. It’s not clear how the sale relates to Rich’s plans in the wake of the pardon or his possible return to the U.S. Alfa Group is one of Russia’s biggest industrial and financial companies with interests ranging from oil to sugar to banking.