The Teghut company has mined copper and molybdenum in a deposit of the same name located in Armenia’s northern Lori province for more than a decade. VTB’s Armenian subsidiary took over Teghut in 2019 after its previous owner failed to repay a $400 million loan provided by the bank.
The mine and an adjacent ore-processing facility suspended operations following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that led to sweeping Western sanctions against Moscow. VTB was one of the first Russian entities sanctioned by the European Union and the United States.
Although Teghut gradually resumed operations in the following years, the state-owned bank seemed keen to get rid of the asset. Its chief executive, Andrei Kostin, announced in April this year that VTB is in the final stages of selling its controlling stake in the enterprise. He gave no details.
Armenia’s state anti-trust regulator cleared the deal last week. It emerged that Teghut’s buyer is Kuprar RA, an obscure company founded in February by Sergei Virabian, a former Armenian government official who has also held senior executive positions in various local banks. Virabian said at the weekend that he sold Kuprar to another “entrepreneur” this month but refused to name him or her.
Sources told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service earlier this year that Konstantin Sokolov, a Russian-born businessman who co-owns one of Armenia’s three mobile phone operators, is showing an interest in Teghut. Virabian would not say whether Sokolov is Kuprar’s new owner.
“I can't reveal that to you, it's a commercial secret,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Teghut was Armenia’s 22nd largest corporate taxpayer last year, with almost 14.4 billion drams ($39 million) in various taxes contributed to the state budget. It employed more than 1,100 people as of 2022.
By comparison, the country’s largest mining enterprise, the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC), paid over 52 billion drams in taxes. The company based in the southeastern Syunik province is controlled by entities linked to Russian billionaire Roman Trotsenko.