04/03/2008 | Hoja_Nasreddin

Де там нашим Андрікам Шевченкам.

By Helena Bedwell
April 3 (Bloomberg)

AC Milan soccer star Kakha Kaladze
and two former members of the government seek to raise $1.5
billion to invest in his native Georgia, whose economy has grown
an average of 9.3 percent a year since 2004.
Kaladze, together with former Prime Minister Zurab
Noghaideli and ex-Finance Minister Aleksi Aleksishvili, plan to
invest in projects ranging from property development to
hydropower through their new fund, Kala Capital, Kaladze said by
telephone from Milan today. Their project has the support of
President Mikheil Saakashvili.
``We're in talks with individual and institutional
investors in the U.K., the U.S. and some in Italy, who are
especially interested in our energy projects,'' Kaladze said.
``We'll announce their names when talks are complete.''
Georgia, a Black Sea country of 4.6 million people located
between Russia and Turkey, expects to lure $2 billion in foreign
investment this year, according to Saakashvili. Its $10 billion
economy expanded 12.4 percent last year, the most since the
Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Saakashvili said he's ``confident'' Kaladze's company will
be successful. ``It has huge potential,'' he said.
``Football doesn't last forever, and it's great to see
successful Georgians like Kakha Kaladze coming home to take part
in the country's development,'' Saakashvili said at a Kala
presentation in Tbilisi earlier this week.
Kaladze said Kala's first venture, Progress Bank, is
scheduled to open in September. Another unit, Capital Energy,
will invest in hydro and wind power, while a third, Arsenal,
will build one of the largest residential, hotel and business
complexes in Tbilisi, he said.
The 10-year investment target, if achieved, ``would equal
something like 6 percent of direct foreign investment over the
period,'' said Yulia Tsepliaeva, a Moscow-based economist at
Merrill Lynch & Co. ``If he does it, a lot of other successful
Georgians with careers abroad could do something similar.''
Kaladze became the most expensive Georgian soccer player
ever in 2001, when AC Milan paid Ukraine's Dinamo Kiev a
transfer fee of 16 million euros ($24.9 million) for him.
Georgian mobile-phone operator Magti GSM made him the face of
its national advertising campaign last year.
``The biggest thing I bring to this project is my name and
my reputation,'' Kaladze said.
Fame has come at a cost for Kaladze. His brother Levan was
kidnapped for ransom and then murdered in Georgia in 2001. Five
people were convicted for the crime.
``I had kept away from doing business in Georgia because of
my family circumstances, but I never lost interest,'' Kaladze
said.

Editors: Patrick G. Henry, Brad Cook