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bne May 2017 Cover Story I 27
ARMENIA
1
Samvel Karapetyan $3.8bn
Real Estate
Karapetyan (51) is a Russo-Armenian real estate mogul who owns 33 shopping centres, six of- fice complexes and 10 hotels across Armenia and Russia. The founder of Tashir Group has branched out into utilities and other sectors deemed strategic to the country's development.
2
Ruben Vardanyan $950mn
Finance
Vardanyan (48) is an Armenian entrepreneur and investment banker who made his fortune in Rus- sia and continues to support Armenia through philanthropic activities. After selling his Troika Dialog investment bank to Sberbank in 2012, he moved on to found the Vardanyan, Broitman and Partners boutique investment firm.
St Petersburg. But Georgian railways
did not have any cranes to unload the containers, and people were filmed on TV unloading them by hand,” he laughs. “I saw the cans and they just looked ‘non-Soviet’, forget what was inside. I called my contacts in St Petersburg and
I offered them the cans. They asked me if they looked ‘American’. I said yes. I convinced the importer to transport back 1.3mn cans to St Petersburg. I bought them for 12 rubles and sold them for
13 rubles. One million, just there.”
Beverages provided his following mil- lions – in dollars. In 1994 Khazaradze, Japaridze and Dutch entrepreneur Bob Mejir, his other long-time business part- ner, decided to revive Borjomi, the most popular drinking water in the USSR, whose production nose-dived from 400mn bottles in the early 1980s to 5mn in the mid-1990s.
“We thought it was easy – until we entered the factory. We had to find investors, but raising international capital was challenging, to put it mildly. Finally in 1996 we gathered $26mn, by then the single biggest investment in Georgia,” he explains.
Since then Borjomi has grown to feature 15 brands, for a total of 1.5bn litres of water bottled every year, and it sells in 40 different countries. In 2006 Russia, the leading importer of the water and Georgia’s celebrated wine, banned both, ostensibly for health reasons. By a bizarre twist of fate, it helped build the brand of today.
“We were forced to diversify, and we learnt not to put all our effort on one market, and although Russia is again the biggest importer, Borjomi has grown enormously in other markets.” Both water and wine – a Georgian symbol dear to Khazaradze – started to flow again in 2013 when Moscow lifted the seven-year ban.
Khazaradze and Japaridze exited
the company in 2014. “I felt I had done what was needed.”
AZERBAIJAN
GEORGIA
1
Mir Jamal Pashayev Unknown
Finance
Pashayev (47) is CEO of Pasha Holding, a diversi- fied group comprising of banking and finance businesses, construction companies, travel agencies and hospitality chains. Azerbaijan's first lady and vice president Mehriban Aliyeva
is a member of the powerful Pashayev family.
1
Bidzina Ivanishvili $4.5bn
Finance
Ivanishvili (61) is Georgia's wealthiest business- man, is a former prime minister and the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party. He made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, where he bought and sold state companies during the early wave of privatisations, and ran mining, banking and telecommunications companies.
3
Soso Pkhakadze Unknown
Petrol retailing
Pkhakadze (46) is president and chairman of Georgia’s Wissol Group, a diversified holding in- cluding petrol service stations, franchises such as Dunkin' Donuts, advertising company Alma, and construction company Vellagio.
4
Valeri Chekheria Unknown
Hotels
Chekherie (38) is CEO and co-founder of Georgia’s Adjara Hospitality Group, which includes The Rooms hotel brand.
Name Net worth
Sector
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