How Gagik Tsarukyan Became the Owner of Ararat Cement: "168 Hours"

The newspaper "168 Hours" reports: "Discussions on the cement tax bill will soon pick up pace. Before the bill is adopted on its first reading, the Prosperous Armenia faction mobilized fully to advocate for the interests of a specific businessman, Gagik Tsarukyan, who owns the Ararat Cement company.

Particularly interesting was Tsarukyan's reaction to a segment of MP Hayk Gevorgyan’s speech from the My Step faction, where the parliamentarian recalled the period of the factory's privatization.

In an interview with "168 Hours," Hayk Gevorgyan asserted his data, stating that in 2002, the company "Roberto" purchased Ararat Cement via direct sales for 200 thousand dollars. According to him, it was not declared at the time that Gagik Tsarukyan was a shareholder because "Roberto" was an offshore company. Tsarukyan's unease puzzled Gevorgyan, who wondered why Tsarukyan was worried when he did not even mention his name when discussing privatization.

The question is under what conditions the factory became the property of Gagik Tsarukyan. Moreover, the information available on the websites of Ararat Cement and the Multi Group concern differs slightly. Specifically, Ararat Cement LLC’s website states: "The factory was privatized in 2002 by the Multi Group concern, transforming into Ararat Cement LLC. Multi Group is a diversified concern composed of several enterprises..."

Meanwhile, the concern's website states in Gagik Tsarukyan's biography that the acquisition of the Ararat Cement factory occurred in 2003.

In 2002, the shares of Ararat Cement, still state property, were sold, as noted by H. Gevorgyan, to the "Roberto" company. This is confirmed by the Armenian government's decision No. 1465-A dated September 12, 2002, ratified by then-President Robert Kocharian.

Accordingly, the state-owned shares of Ararat Cement LLC, 317003 shares with a nominal value of 10,000 drams each, were privatized through direct sales to the Belgian company "Roberto." The total price set for the privatized shares was 200 thousand US dollars, and the government only obligated the buyer to ensure the production volumes of cement by Ararat Cement over the next 3 years, but no less than the production volumes of 2001. No investment obligations were imposed on the new offshore owner.

In the same decision, the government obliged various companies to release another company from its obligations, which, however, were not clearly linked to Ararat Cement, specifically releasing "HayRusGazard" LLC from debts arising from the commodity payments for natural gas supplied by the international energy corporation "Itera," amounting to 6.8 million US dollars, and freeing "HayRusGazard" from a 6 million US dollar obligation to the “Yerevan Thermal Power Plant” for supplied gas, along with similar releases involving debts to other entities.

There is no information on how the offshore "Roberto" exited the scene, or how and for what price Multi Group acquired the factory.

Tsarukyan declined to provide any clarification recently. When asked how much he paid for Ararat Cement, Tsarukyan responded, "What’s it to you?"

Incidentally, at that time, experts deemed the direct sale of Ararat Cement "illegal," as there were various other international investors who offered significantly larger sums. However, only the Swiss company "Holcim" submitted a bid in the international tender in 2001, which later withdrew from the deal at the last moment.

Later, following the deal with "Roberto," then-Minister of Territorial Administration, Tsarukyan's relative Hovik Abrahamyan stated that the government's decision to sell Ararat Cement to "Roberto" was a continuation of the competition announced for the privatization of the factory.

For more details, see today’s edition of the newspaper.