ArmInfo. Electric Networks of Armenia CJSC will be transferred to trust management. RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced this at a government meeting on August 6.
According to him, network management should be transferred to a private company. The authorities have made a conceptual decision on transferring the company to trust management.
As for other production facilities, the head of government noted that they will need to be privatized after nationalization. Leaving these enterprises in state ownership makes no sense; they will need to be sold through open and transparent tenders, but with the state retaining a certain shareholding and seats on the boards of directors.
As a reminder, Electric Networks of Armenia CJSC has been owned by Samvel Karapetyan's Tashir Group of Companies since 2016. In 2025, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced his intention to nationalize ESA following Karapetyan's statement expressing public support for the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) and his arrest. Parliament later adopted amendments to laws providing for the return of ESA to state control. On July 18, the head of the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) appointed Romanos Petrosyan as interim manager. Petrosyan began making the first personnel changes among the company's senior officials on July 24, despite the Stockholm Arbitration Court's ruling not to change the company's management and refrain from actions aimed at expropriating the company. On August 9, Narek Karapetyan, a shareholder of ESA and CEO of Tashir Capital, filed a lawsuit in the Administrative Court of Armenia against the PSRC and its chairman, Mesrop Mesropyan, demanding that the PSRC be declared ineligible to change the company's management.
By a decision of the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) on November 17, 2025, Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) CJSC was stripped of its electricity transmission license. The decision listed violations the commission found in the company's operations. On March 3, 2026, Romanos Petrosyan, interim manager of ENA and board member of the ruling Civil Contract party, announced that the state was preparing to fully nationalize the shares of ENA, recognizing it as a priority public interest, and to pay compensation to the owner, Tashir Capital. He clarified that February 21 was the deadline for the government to make an offer, conduct negotiations, and, as a result of the transaction, transfer 100% of the company's shares to the state. The interim manager, however, declined to disclose the specific value of ENA or the price proposed by the government.
Meanwhile, Pashinyan previously stated that the company's price could be reduced under certain circumstances. The prime minister explained that the company had long been used for narrow, personal purposes. Furthermore, according to available information, ESA is burdened with loan obligations, which were then transferred to associates and relatives without interest. "According to preliminary estimates, all of this naturally reduces the company's market value and will not create serious problems for the budget," the head of government emphasized. Meanwhile, David Ghazinyan, a member of the Strong Armenia party board and former ESA CEO, stated that the real value of Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) is close to $1 billion, and the company's owners will not agree to sell it at a reduced price.
