Karapetyan's arrest and the nationalisation of Electric Networks of Armenia: what happens to Tashir's assets

The founder of Tashir has been arrested again, this time in a case over damage to Electric Networks of Armenia, which the state will nationalise in 2027. Who is who and what comes next.

Kurs Media editorial team6 November 2026, 12:40

The Gyumri office of Electric Networks of Armenia. Photo: Maximden, CC0

Case file

Court: Armenian courts; Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce
At stake: Electric Networks of Armenia — a former acting CEO valued the company at $1 billion; damage alleged by investigators: 64.5 billion drams (about $180 million)
Status: Karapetyan remanded in custody for a month in a new case; nationalisation of ENA scheduled for May–October 2027; the Stockholm tribunal is ruling on jurisdiction

The search of Samvel Karapetyan's mansion in Yerevan began on the morning of November 4, and by evening investigators had also visited 64 other addresses. The next day a court remanded the billionaire in custody for a month. It is his second arrest in a year and a half — and the first in which the issue is no longer words spoken from a podium but money. According to Armenia's Investigative Committee, 36 people caused more than 64.5 billion drams, about $180 million, in damage to Electric Networks of Armenia. Karapetyan and the others are accused of embezzlement and money laundering.

The company in question barely belongs to Karapetyan any more. Nikol Pashinyan's government stripped it of its licence, put its own manager in charge and in October approved its nationalisation. The new criminal case arrives just as the dispute between Yerevan and the Tashir group has shifted from whether the grid will be taken away to how much will be paid for it.

Karapetyan denies wrongdoing. His lawyer, Armen Feroyan, called the arrest unlawful and promised to appeal. His party, Strong Armenia, said the state bodies were "carrying out Pashinyan's instructions."

The billionaire from Tashir

The group is named after a town. Karapetyan was born in 1965 in the village of Kalinino in northern Armenia, renamed Tashir in 1991. After graduating from the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute he worked at a local enamelware factory, moved to Russia in the early 1990s, bought the Kaluga company Kalugaglavsnab in 1997 and two years later built his own group on its foundation.

Today Tashir comprises more than 200 companies, and almost all of the business is in Russia. The group owns more than a hundred commercial properties, including 16 RIO shopping centres, as well as Fora-Bank and more than 140 restaurants. According to Forbes, Tashir is one of Russia's largest commercial property owners, with rental income of about $685 million a year, and the magazine has estimated Karapetyan's own fortune at $3.2 billion.

In Armenia the group's main asset became the power grid. Tashir bought it in 2015 from Russia's Inter RAO and gained a monopoly on electricity distribution in a country with more than a million consumers. For ten years the purchase looked like an ordinary investment by a diaspora billionaire in his homeland's economy.

The church, prison and a party

Everything changed in the summer of 2025, when Pashinyan entered into open conflict with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Karapetyan, who had until then kept out of politics, publicly took the church's side. Within days his mansion was searched, and on June 18 he was arrested on charges of publicly calling for the seizure of power. Investigators later added economic charges. Pashinyan said at the time that Russia was using the businessman in a "hybrid operation"; Karapetyan's supporters called him a political prisoner.

Prison made him a politician. In July 2025, still in custody, Karapetyan announced the creation of the movement "Our Way." At the end of December a court moved him to house arrest; in January the movement became the Strong Armenia party, and in February its congress nominated Karapetyan for prime minister. To make that possible he announced he was renouncing his Russian and Cypriot citizenship.

In the June 7, 2026, elections, the party's list was headed by the businessman's nephew, Narek Karapetyan. Strong Armenia won 23.34% of the vote and 29 seats, becoming the largest opposition force in parliament. Pashinyan's Civil Contract took 49.89% and kept its majority. The opposition refused to recognise the results and alleged fraud; the authorities, for their part, reported more than 40 arrests in a vote-buying case linked to Karapetyan's party.

How the grid was taken

The fight over the grid began at the same time as the first criminal case. Immediately after Karapetyan's arrest, Pashinyan announced that it was time to nationalise the company, and in July 2025 parliament passed amendments allowing the regulator to remove an energy company's management and impose temporary administration. Tashir turned to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and on July 22 an emergency arbitrator ordered Armenia to refrain from expropriation. Yerevan did not recognise the order, citing the primacy of national law.

From then on, every venue worked against the businessman. In November 2025 the regulator revoked the company's licence. In January, according to Kommersant, the Stockholm arbitrators declined to restore the licence and the former management. In March, Armenia's Constitutional Court upheld the amendments, and Pashinyan promised to see the nationalisation through. In June, according to the Armenian government, the tribunal agreed to rule first, separately, on whether it has jurisdiction over the dispute at all: Yerevan insists that the Karapetyan family does not meet the definition of an investor.

The Government House of Armenia on Republic Square in Yerevan. Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0

On October 15 the government declared the company's shares to be of "overriding public interest." The buyout will begin on May 1, 2027, and must be completed by October 1; the buyer will be the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, and the price will be set by an independent appraiser. About 70% of the shares belong to Tashir Capital and the rest to Cyprus-based Liormand Holdings Limited. In February, the company's former acting CEO David Ghazinyan valued it at $1 billion. Pashinyan has said that after nationalisation he would like to hand management of the grid to one of the world's leading companies.

Tashir Capital called the decision unlawful and warned that the state would have to "compensate investors for all damages." Karapetyan said back in September that he would not sell the company voluntarily.

A question of price

The new case changes the calculation. As long as the dispute was about the legality of the seizure, Tashir could argue that a working business worth about a billion dollars was being taken from it. Now investigators allege that money was being siphoned out of that business, and the $180 million in alleged damage may end up in the same file as the future valuation — as a sum the state will seek to withhold. The Stockholm tribunal remains the only venue where Karapetyan can challenge both the seizure and the price, but first he will have to prove that the dispute falls within the arbitrators' jurisdiction at all. Even a winning award would have to be enforced outside Armenia.

Moscow has its own interest in this story. In August, after the arrest of former Armenian president Robert Kocharyan, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova spoke of repression against politicians who favour relations with Russia and expressed hope that they would be able to "calmly take part in the country's domestic political life." Yerevan also has an open dispute with Russian business over the Russian Railways concession for Armenia's railway, which runs until 2038. Expert Karen Igityan, speaking to Vedomosti, suggested that the nationalisation of the grid could be a prelude to revising that agreement as well. Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Institute, believes that Yerevan is driven above all by domestic politics and warns that the episode will hurt the country's investment appeal.

The rest of the group's Armenian business is now also in investigators' sights: searches at 65 addresses show that more than one energy company is being examined. The Russian part of the empire — the shopping centres, the bank, the restaurants — is out of the Armenian authorities' reach, and it is that part that pays both for the lawyers in Stockholm and for the party in Yerevan. But judging by last year, its owner may be running it from detention for a long time: back then his one-month custody was extended for more than half a year.

For Russian companies in Armenia, the lesson of this story is not the fate of a single billionaire. A strategic asset whose owner went into politics moved, in two years, from an emergency arbitrator's ruling in its favour to an approved nationalisation timetable. International arbitration did not stop the seizure; it only left a chance of compensation — someday, and outside the country.