ArmInfo.The Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF) has announced changes in its management staff. On the initiative of the Ministry of Economy, changes were made to the management staff, including the board of directors of ANIF. Previously the Board of ANIF was chaired by Dominique de Villepin, former PM of and Minister of the Interior of France.
By the decision of the Minister of Economy, he was replaced in this position by the Deputy Minister of Economy of RA Ani Ispiryan. Ani Ispiryan holds the post of Deputy Minister of Economy since September 2021. Before that, in 2020-2021 she worked as an expert at the RA Ministry of Economy within the framework of the "iGorts" program.
New members of the Board of Directors were appointed: Edgar Mkrtchyan, the Chief of Staff of RA Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, and Arman Adilkhanyan, the Chief of Staff of RA Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan.
The contract of ANIF Director David Papazian was prematurely terminated by the vote of three new members of the Council. After this decision of the Ministry of Economy, the former Chairman of the BOD, Dominque De Villepin, also submitted his resignation from the position of a member of the BOD. Another long-time member of the Board of Directors of ANIF, Isidoro Lucciola also left the Board. Mr Lucciola is the founder and chairman of an investment banking and corporate finance independent boutique (Appeal Strategy & Finance), of a systemic provider of advisory and agency services to banks active in Italy (loan agency services) as well as of the Italian market leader in invoice trading fintech solutions for corporations (TSFVC). Mr. Lucciola has also been a member of ANIF's Board of Directors since its inception, and has supported the implementation of a number of investment projects in Armenia.
Khaled Helioui, the head of ANIF's investment committee, and Michael Thompson, a member of the Investment Committee, have also resigned.
Since 2019, ANIF has implemented a number of strategic projects with the now former composition of the board of directors and management structure, including the largest foreign investment project in Armenia at the moment, the "AYG-1" project jointly with the UAE State owned Masdar company, as well as Fly Arna Armenian National Airline jointly with Air Arabia.
A brief description of ANIF's recorded success in numbers:
Attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) in the total volume of 84.6 billion drams (at the exchange rate of 09.11.2023) or 210 million US dollars, of which:
Fly Arna: 10 million USD.
AYG-1: 200 million USD;
Investments in the domestic market through the "Entrepreneur + State anti-crisis investments" in 2021- 2023:
7.8 billion drams - money directly invested by ANIF,
900 million drams - money co-invested by private partners, 1.931 billion drams - money drawn from commercial banks.
Paid taxes in 2021-2022: 837 million drams;
Taxes paid in 2023 in 9 months: 3.3 billion drams;
Taxes to be paid in 2023-2024: 8.9 billion drams (including taxes actually paid in 9 months of 2023); More than 800 jobs created
Average salary in the projects created by ANIF in 2023. as of now: 558 thousand drams, when the average salary in RA is 263 thousand AMD.
Systemic investment attraction solution: creation of ARFI (Armenia Financed), the first online state crowdfunding platform in the world, which systematically solves the problem of ensuring a stable flow of investments from the diaspora to the Homeland.
1.76 billion drams (about 4.5 million dollars) net accounting profit in 2022. as of December 31.
The outgoing ANIF CEO David Papazian said "It has been an honor to lead Armenia's nascent Sovereign Investment Fund since its inception in 2019. I am thankful to everyone who has believed in our journey, to our local and international partners, to everyone who through interaction has taught me lessons which I now take to my next career chapter. I wish the Ministry of Economy much success in building on top of the heritage we pass on to them today".
