Discover yourself: Tigran Sargsyan and compulsory pension fund’s manager
Twelve years ago something happened, which seemed to be not so important at that time. According to ArmenPress, on October 23, 2002, the RA Central Bank and its counterparts from Germany, in cooperation with the UN Education, Science and Culture office in Germany, initiated a memorandum of understanding between the Lorsch Church of Germany and Geghard Church of Armenia.
The purpose of the MoA was religious, scientific and educational cooperation between Germany and Armenia. ArmenPress reports that un two weeks after the signing of the MoA the parties created an Armenian-German religious, educational, scientific and cultural board composed of state institutions, state, private and religious organizations, as well as representatives from the Deutche Bank and the Armenian Central Bank. The parties agreed that the Board would be governed by Tigran Sargsyan.
On the same day the Lorsch Church of Germany and Geghard Church of Armenia signed a Memorandum for cooperation. In the middle ages the Lorsch Church was one of the richest and most influential churches in Central Europe, and it served as an important scientific, educational and cultural center. In 1991 Lorsch was registered in the UNESCO’s world heritage list. In 2001 Geghard was registered in the same list as it was declared as a unique example of antique architecture.
The director of Lorsche’s museum Herman Schepers said that the primary goal of the project was to encourage cooperation between world cultural heritage centers. He said that the initiative was inspired by UNESCO’s world heritage agreement of 1972 and bilateral agreements related thereto. This project involves areas of common interest such as protection of monuments, history, Christian values, etc. Do not rush to make conclusions if this seems uninteresting to you.
In eleven years after the signing of this document the German party was hosted by Tigran Sargsyan in Yerevan. As the German www.morgenweb.de web site reports, the main purpose of the meeting between Ernst-Ludwig Drayss and the Armenian Prime-Minister was cooperation. “Tigran actively supported cooperation between the world heritage monuments of Geghard and Lorsche, and UNESCO in 2002.
The cooperation was encouraged by Drayss, who as finance professional has been in good relations with the Central Bank. He is also the chairman of the board of directors of Lorsche world heritage. Sargsyan was the Central Bank chairman of Armenia before, due to which this business cooperation turned intercultural collaboration. Thus, Sargsyan visited Lorsche often, as he did in June 2002 at the time of signing this agreement. Now, as the Prime-Minister of the country he s curious how far that cooperation had gone,” writes the German web site and adds that in the end of the meeting Tigran Sargsyan received a collection of pictures as present.
Below is the most important part of the story.
This information was published in Germany on April 23, 2013. This means that the meeting had taken place either that day or a couple of days before. We did not find any information about this meeting in the government’s official web site. Why doesn’t the government want to publicize information about this great initiative and meeting?
The man in the picture is Ernst-Ludwig Drayss, who is not only the chairman of the Lorsche board but also the board chairman of C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia company. This company is one of the two companies that supposedly had to manage the pension fund money.
In seven months following the mentioned meeting, on November 29, 2013, the board of the Armenian Central Bank registered the C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia LLC.
Maybe Tigran Sargsyan does not want people know that Drayss and himself are old friends. This cooperation was not limited with Geghard and Lorsche only. According to morgenweb.de, during the mentioned meeting Drayss spoke about Noah Union Foundation headquartered in Hoffenheim, which I involved in various initiatives.
There were rumors that the PM was linked with the pension fund issue, and they would not want to disseminate a lot of information about it. However, this is not all yet.
Armenian trace in the C-Quadrat
C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia company’s executive director is Arman Vardanyan. This is not confidential as the company’s web site has this information posted.
The web site writes that Arman Vardanyan has experience in managing assets in Western Europe and South America.
Before working in this position he had been a member of the board of Absolute Portfolio Management, which is affiliated with C-QUADRAT Group. Before these positions Vardanyan had worked in the Central Bank for many years and his progressive career growth in the CB made him adviser on international transactions to CB president Tigran Sargsyan. This means that Tigran Sargsyan knows Arman Vardanyan very well.
Mr. Drayss knows Vardanyan very well too as he managed the Absolute Portfolio Management since 2006. Since 2007 Vardanyan and Drayss had been working together. As these three people know each other very well, it is not excluded that they might have had non-official meetings to discuss various interesting issues and projects. Maybe the compulsory pension fund was one of such projects.
The Sabotage Theory
All statements above are facts only and nothing more. However, these facts are enough for interested parties to interpret the story in the way they want. For example, such rumors say that Tigran Sargsyan had the idea of using the money of Armenian citizens through third person long ago. After meeting Drayss his idea became more realistic as his friend was a great finance professional and had managed the Deutche Bank. Another scenario people discuss is that Tigran Sargsyan sent Arman Vardanyan to Europe on purpose and it was not by chance that he was hired by his friend Drayss. After Tigran Sargsyan became Prime-Minister, such people concluded that his team that grew with him from the Central Bank was the main author of the proposal to manage pension funds.
However, we will not look for a hidden agenda behind this cooperation as we more believe that the cooperation between Tigran Sargsyan and Drayss was limited with issues related to religion and churches.
By the way, in the beginning of the report it was written that the cooperation was welcomed by and statements were made by Varburg bank representative Ernst-Ludwig Drayss, German Ambassador to Armenia Hans-Vul Bartels and His Holiness Navasard from the Araratian Branch of the Armenian Church. This is for your information only to have more facts about collaboration between the two churches.
By Babken Tunyan
