In response to international sanctions, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder and honorary chair of Georgia’s ruling party, has transferred ownership of multiple companies from offshore jurisdictions to Georgia, shielding his assets from global economic exposure.
In December, the U.S. sanctioned the powerful tycoon, who is widely seen as the country’s informal ruler, saying he was undermining Georgia’s democracy for the benefit of Russia.
Critics accuse the governing Georgian Dream party of becoming increasingly authoritarian and aligned with Moscow, often pointing out that Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s.
On December 31 — just four days after he was sanctioned — Ivanishvili began moving offshore companies to Georgia, according to an analysis by the local chapter of the advocacy group Transparency International. One of those firms owns part of Ivanishvili’s opulent glass and steel mansion overlooking the country’s capital, Tbilisi.
OCCRP has identified additional high-end Ivanishvili properties owned by some of these firms, including a previously unreported luxury residence in a spa town and the former offices of the Georgian Dream political party in Tbilisi.
According to Maximilian Hess, founder of political risk consultancy Enmetena Advisory, Ivanishvili’s asset restructuring could present wider problems for Georgia if sanctions against the billionaire deepen. He explained that such a scenario could make it “very hard” for businesses to deal with the country because of sanctions risks associated with Ivanishvili’s influence over the economy.
“His assets will be a very large share of the overall Georgian economy,” Hess said. “What Ivanishvili is effectively doing is transferring the risk from himself and his own wealth to the country of Georgia and the Georgian people.”
Georgian Dream’s PR department head Giorgi Grdzelishvili did not answer OCCRP’s specific questions about Ivanishvili’s restructuring of his assets. He said the U.S. sanctions against the Georgian Dream founder were a “punishment” for his refusal to wage war against Russia and because he “did not allow a revolution” in Georgia.
The Georgian authorities have used heavy handed tactics to suppress mass anti-government protests in recent months. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has accused opposition and civil society leaders of fomenting a Ukraine-style uprising in the country with foreign backing.
Seven Firms
Many of Ivanishvili’s assets were transferred on a single day, January 17. That day, the ownership of seven firms was transferred from a Panamanian company called Limestone Finance International SA to JSC Terra, Ivanishvili’s Georgian company.
One of the seven companies, Riverside View, owns a development on the site of an old sanatorium in Abastumani, a once-thriving tourist spa town that Ivanishvili has sought to revive, including with his own investments. Most of the site had previously been owned by the Georgian state, but it was auctioned off to Ivanishvili’s company in 2019.
According to property records acquired by OCCRP, Riverside View initially obtained a permit to build a hotel on the land, but the plans were changed, and in 2022 the firm got permission to construct a luxury residence, complete with a basement spa, swimming pool, and Turkish bath, as well as a rooftop orangery. Satellite imagery indicates that a basketball court has also been built. The existence of this residence has not previously been reported.
Another of the firms, Abastumani 2019, holds construction rights on 12,000 square meters of land within a state-owned national park behind the old sanatorium site — a privilege it was awarded by the state in 2019, according to land registry records. A copy of a contract with Georgia’s national agency of protected areas indicates the firm was required to build “eco-tourism” infrastructure on the land.
Another of the transferred firms, Geofert, is a fertilizer business that owns a manufacturing plant in a town called Kaspi. Two of the others own property in Tbilisi.
Akhali Kapitali is the owner of Georgian Dream’s former office in the city. The party HQ was reportedly relocated in 2024. And Invest Capital owns land next to the luxury compound looming over Tbilisi that is widely understood to have served as Ivanishvili’s residence, housing his extensive collection of modern art. (The residence itself is already held by Georgian corporate structures that ultimately belong to Ivanishvili’s son, Uta, according to their 2023 financial statements.)
The other firms with ownership brought to Georgia, namely Cartu Consulting and Black Sea Arena, do not own real estate.
The week after these seven firms were transferred, the ultimate ownership of some other Ivanishvili family assets was also moved to Georgia.
These include over 17 million laris’ ($6 million) worth of real estate — including a helipad-topped structure within the oligarch’s hill-top Tbilisi mansion — as well as over 5.5 million laris’ ($1.9 million) worth of art, including paintings, sculptures, and jewelry.
The luxury residence of Bidzina Ivanishvili in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The assets are owned by Finservice-XXI, a Georgian company whose latest financial statements for 2023 recorded that it was controlled by Uta Ivanishvili via a Belize-registered company. But on January 22, Uta Ivanishvili took direct ownership of Finservice’s shares. Two days later he transferred them to ATU Holding, his recently-established Georgian company.
In an interview with the Japanese tabloid Shūkan Bunshun, Uta Ivanishvili reportedly denied setting up ATU Holding. According to a notary’s attestation contained within the company’s official incorporation filings, the billionaire’s son granted power of attorney from Japan, where he reportedly lives, for someone to act for the firm on his behalf. Neither the company nor Uta Ivanishvili responded to requests for comment.
‘A Way to Shield Against the Potential Impact’
Experts said that, in fact, Ivanishvili had no need to “redomicile” his companies in direct response to being sanctioned by the United States, because the sanctions had been watered down through a general license that allows continued trade with his companies. They said he may be anticipating further action, however.
Hess, the political risk consultant, said the exemption was “too broad.” The transfers of Ivanishvili’s companies, he said, were “a way to shield against the potential impact, firstly of a withdrawal of this licence, and secondly from the potential for the U.K. or the EU to also sanction Ivanishvili.”
“They might yank the license,” said Nicki Kenyon, associate managing director at the Institute of Financial Integrity and former senior intelligence officer at the U.S. Treasury Department, who added that she was “absolutely floored” by the Biden administration’s decision to issue it. “And you now have pressure in the EU and UK to sanction [Ivanishvili]. I seriously doubt that they’re going to issue a general license.”
Lawmakers in both the European and British parliaments have called for Ivanishvili to be sanctioned.
Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet
Ivanishvili has also taken steps to repatriate parts of his art collection back to Georgia in recent years, according to an invoice for Christie’s auction house obtained by OCCRP.
The invoice, dated August 2022, relates to an art shipment valued at $90.5 million, including works by the French painter Maurice de Vladminck and Russian artist Alexandra Ekster. The shipment was made on behalf of British Virgin Islands-registered Lynden Management — a company which has held hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of artworks for Ivanishvili, including works by Picasso, Van Gogh, and Monet, court records show. The listed ‘consignee’ — or recipient — was the Georgia-registered Finservice-XXI.
While Ivanishvili was not under sanctions at the time, the EU Parliament had called for him to be sanctioned in June 2022 for his alleged responsibility for political repression in Georgia and links to the Kremlin.
It is not known where Ivanishvili’s art collection is currently being held.
The billionaire’s former assistant, George Bachiashvili, claimed on Georgian TV last October that Ivanishvili had told him in 2022 that he was encountering difficulties importing his art collection to Georgia. Bachiashvili is engaged in a public spat with Ivanishvili.
In 2022, Ivanishvili’s lawyer told the media that his client had, in March to mid-April of that year, experienced “delays” in transporting art from London and New York due to his longstanding legal dispute with the bank Credit Suisse, but that the hold-up was “ultimately resolved.”
A Christie’s spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied that the auction house handled art shipments for Ivanishvili, but insisted the company “complies with all international laws and regulations, including sanctions laws.”
“These matters are taken extremely seriously and monitored by the company’s global compliance department,” the spokesperson said.
Despite the recent restructuring of some of Ivanishvili’s Georgian assets, other significant holdings associated with him are still owned offshore. Some are held by the Georgian Co-Investment Fund (GCF Fund), a private investment fund which manages assets worth over US$2 billion in the country’s economy, including hydropower projects, luxury hotels, and a cement plant.
According to financial statements for 2023 filed by its Georgia-based subsidiaries, the GCF Fund was ultimately controlled by Bidzina Ivanishvili’s wife, Ekaterine Khvedelidze, via a complicated structure involving Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.
Although the GCF Fund is currently “free to operate,” Kenyon said, it faces the risk of being sanctioned due to its links to Ivanishvili. Even though financial institutions can still transact with the tycoon’s firms, uncertainty and reputational risk might make them wary about doing so, she added. The GCF Fund did not respond to OCCRP’s request for comment.
Transparency International Georgia’s report noted that a new standalone entity, JSK GCF Georgia, was set up in January under Khvedelidze’s direct ownership, with no overseas ties.