Ameriabank confirmed on Monday that changes have taken place in its list of stakeholders. The new stakeholders are as follows: Bank of Georgia Group PLC (60 percent), Bank of Georgia JSC (30 percent) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (10 percent).
The leading Georgian bank announced in February a $303.6 million deal to buy Armenia’s Ameriabank partly owned by Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian billionaire jailed in Azerbaijan along with several other former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The deal required the approval of the Bank of Georgia’s multiple shareholders and the Central Bank of Armenia. In a statement then, the bank’s British-registered parent company, Bank of Georgia Group (BOGG), said it would “significantly enhance the Group’s presence and growth opportunities within a fast-growing and attractive market.”
Ameriabank is one of Armenia’s largest banks with total assets worth $3.4 billion, compared with $11.7 billion held by the Bank of Georgia. Vardanyan owned, through a trust fund, almost 49 percent of Ameriabank, making him its biggest shareholder.
The tycoon, who had made his fortune in Russia, briefly served as Nagorno-Karabakh’s premier in late 2022 and early 2023. He and seven other former political and military leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh were arrested by Azerbaijani security services last September during the mass exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian population which followed an Azerbaijani military offensive. They remain imprisoned there on serious charges. Armenia has demanded their immediate release.
Still in February, Mesrop Arakelian, an Armenian opposition figure linked to Vardanyan, denied that the billionaire had anything to do with the bank’s possible sale. He said the takeover talks between BOGG and Ameriabank began in 2022. He did not clarify, however, whether Vardanyan approved the resulting acquisition of his bank.
Ameriabank is the second Armenian bank which has changed hands in recent months. Earlier this year, HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, announced the sale of its Armenian subsidiary to Ardshinbank, the largest in Armenia.
HSBC said the deal, also subject to Armenian regulatory approvals, stems from its “strategy to redeploy capital from less strategic or low-connectivity businesses into higher-growth opportunities globally.”