Ankhor Invest has become the owner of the controlling stake in the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant. This follows from the Committee for the Development of Competition and Protection of Consumer Rights, which issues provisional consent to mergers and acquisitions, as well as the sale of shares and stakes, said in a debrief.

Reportedly, Ankhor Invest became the owner of 50.1% stake in TMZ on May 23, 2024, the remaining 49.9% belongs to the Uzbekistan Fund for Reconstruction and Development (UFRD), the country's sovereign wealth fund.

Ankhor Invest was founded on February 9, 2022 with authorized capital at 1.1 billion soums.

The CEO of the company is Azamat Shamsiev, the owner is Javlon Ismailov.

Javlon Ismailov, who was previously a member of the audit commission of Orient Finans Bank, also owns steke in Hamkor Temir Savdo (a supplier of roofing materials) and Metall West.

Both of these companies were linked with Torgoviy Dom Metalloinvest Vostok, among the owners of which was a subsidiary of Metalloinvest from Alisher Usmanov’s USM holding. In May 2022, Torgoviy Dom won the tender for the privatization of the former government-owned hotel in Tashkent.

Currently, Hamkor Temir Savdo owns 49% of the Torgoviy House, the remaining 51% is owned by Iron Fort, where the founder has also changed — Miras instead of Bipar LLC.

About the project, owner and possible bankruptcy

In early December 2020, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev attended the launch ceremony of the $420 million Tashkent Metallurgical Plant.

The total investment in the project was estimated at more than 334.5 million euros, of which 164.56 million euros is a 10-year loan from the Russian Export-Import Bank, 154.7 million euros are own funds (about half — UFRD), 15.1 million euros is a loan from Asaka Bank. The estimated payback period was about 8.6 years. Initially, the project was estimated at 278.2 million euros, but after changes were made to the project to expand production capacity, it increased, as did the payback period, to 9.3 years.

The project to build the plant on ​​49.7 hectares was completed on a turnkey basis by the Russian group Metprom, meaning that the group acted as both the designer and the general contractor for the project. The enterprise is equipped with technologies and automated equipment from the Italian Danieli.

The project was managed by the foreign company SFI Management Group (billionaire Alisher Usmanov told Forbes that the company belonged to the family of the billionaire Fattakh Shadiev's brother, Kabul Shadiev, who was present at the opening of TMZ and made a presentation to the president), which fully supervised all stages of construction and commissioning, including project development, negotiations with all interested parties, attracting investments, loans, and recruiting foreign specialists.

Initially, the equity owners of the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant were the Uzbekistan Fund for Reconstruction and Development (49.9%, or 98.7 million euros) and the Dutch Metallurgical Technology and Engineering B.V. (50.1%, 99.1 million euros).

SFI Management Group, which managed the project implementation, came forward with a proposal to become a participant in the project. The restructuring of the founders occurred due to a decrease in the share of Metallurgical Technology and Engineering B.V. to 41.9%. SFI Management Group received 8.2%.

In April 2022, at an industrial exhibition in Tashkent, Metalloinvest CEO Nazim Efendiev announced that the company had "invested and entered the capital of TMZ." Metalloinvest Holding (Cyprus) Limited became the owner of a 41.8% stake instead of the Dutch Metallurgical Technology and Engineering B.V., and the Cypriot Miramonte Investments Limited became the owner of 8.2% instead of SFI.

The United States imposed sanctions on Metalloinvest and Miramonte Investments in April 2023.

In June 2023, it was reported that the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant was at risk of bankruptcy due to the "inaction" of its founders from Cyprus, including a subsidiary of Metalloinvest associated with Alisher Usmanov. The FRRU managed to exclude investors from the project through the courts, but was left with losses of 916.9 billion soums and a loan of 179.7 million euros.

In response to the reports, the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant stated that the company's debts were serviced through commercial activities. "The state is not liable for the company's obligations," TMZ noted.

It is worth noting that the joint venture that owns the plant was founded in the form of an LLC, which is why the company is not required to publish financial statements and material facts about its activities to the public. For mandatory disclosure of information, the enterprise must be in the form of a joint-stock company.

According to the presidential decree of 2024, 49.9% of the UFRD's stake in the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant is planned to be put up for public auction on the international market by the end of June 2025.