A Trump Tower planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is to be built on land currently part-owned by the son of the US-sanctioned leader of the country, according to official records.
The proposed skyscraper, a joint venture between a local consortium and the Trump Organization, which is managed by the US president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will be on a plot whose current registered owner is the International Charity Fund Cartu.
According to official records, the Fund Cartu is solely owned by Cartu Group JSC which, in turn, is 35% owned by Uta Ivanishvili, the eldest son of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire politician who is honorary chair of Georgia’s ruling party.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is widely recognised as the de facto leader of the Georgian government, was put under US sanctions by the Biden administration in 2024 for “undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation”.
Uta Ivanishvili, who is not under sanctions, owned 100% of Cartu Group JSC until 2024 but reduced his shareholding to 35% when his father, who is Georgia’s richest man, was subjected to US economic restrictions.
It is not possible to identify the remaining 65% ownership of Cartu Group JSC today, as individual shareholdings of under 5% can be held anonymously.
Under the sanctions regime, US citizens are prohibited from conducting business, processing payments, or providing services to Bidzina Ivanishvili personally without authorisation but there is an exemption relating to businesses controlled by him.
The links between the Trump Organization and the Ivanishvili family will raise fresh concerns about the potential conflict of interest raised by the selling of the US president’s name to developers seeking to sell residential and resort complexes.
Similar franchise agreements struck by the Trump Organization include a luxury hotel and golf course complex in Oman, which is being built on land owned by the country’s government.
That project and three others are in partnership with a subsidiary of a Saudi-based real estate company, Dar Al Arkan, which has close ties with the Saudi government, the New York Times reported last year. The White House has said that “neither the president nor his family” have “ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest”.
In a press release published by the Trump Organization in April announcing the 70-storey tower project in Tbilisi, Eric Trump, the executive vice-president of the real estate multinational, said the company was “proud to bring this globally recognised standard of excellence to Georgia and are especially pleased to collaborate with such respected and professional developers on this project”.
Four Georgian firms – Archi Group, Biograpi Living, Blox Group and Finvest Georgia, alongside the US-based Sapir Organization, a longstanding Trump partner – are going into partnership with the Trump Organization for the project to build Georgia’s tallest building. There are no sanctions against any of those companies or its directors.
Archi Group’s founder, the businessman Ilia Tsulaia, previously served as an MP for the Georgian Dream party, while Biograpi Living is part of the Wissol Group, owned by the brothers Soso and Levan Pkhakadze, whose silence over Georgia’s recent political upheavals has been a point of comment in local media. None of the companies responded to a request for comment.
The central Tbilisi plot on which the Trump Tower will be built is an old Soviet horse-racing track, known as the hippodrome. It is now owned by Cartu but an agreement was reached in 2023 for it to be sold to a company called Central Park Avenue LLC.
The ownership of only a small peripheral portion of that land has been transferred so far to Central Park Avenue LLC. Completion of the sale of the majority of the plot is due to be made on receipt of payment to Cartu of the purchase price.
Temo Tsikvadze, a lawyer for Ivanishvili, said: “Bidzina Ivanishvili’s family owned a total of 511,880 sq metres of land on the site of the former racecourse.
“Bidzina Ivanishvili donated the bulk of this land – 431,735 sq metres – to the state and is currently building a public space, the Central Park, on it at his own expense. A preliminary purchase and sale agreement for the remaining land plot – 80,000 sq metres – was signed on October 16 2023.
“Under this agreement, the future owner is Central Park Avenue LLC (although a portion of the area – 9,645 sq metres – has already been fully transferred). The transfer of the remaining land to the future owner will occur upon payment in accordance with the terms of the agreement.”
The Trump Tower project has been seen by Bidzina Ivanishvili’s critics in Georgia as an attempt to ingratiate himself with the US president. Georgian Dream leaders have loudly trumpeted the project as a vote of confidence in Georgia’s economy and governance.
The speaker of Georgia’s parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, who is from the ruling Georgian Dream party, has said that “when Trump’s company enters Georgia under its own brand, it means it has a strong understanding of the existing environment. Naturally, Trump and his company are careful to protect the reputation they have built.”
Sandro Kevkhishvili, the anti-corruption programme manager at Transparency International Georgia, said there were grounds for concern that the Trump Tower project in Georgia was “not merely a private business project, but rather a political one”.
The involvement of at least one businessman with affiliations to the Georgian Dream party was the first cause of concern, he said. “Second is that to this day the land plot on which the project is planned belongs to Cartu Fund – a charity organisation linked to the family of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chair of the Georgian Dream ruling party, and a person exercising effective control over Georgia; and third is the fact that the Georgian Dream-aligned propaganda channels, recently sanctioned by the United Kingdom under Russia sanctions regime for deliberately spreading false information about the Ukraine war, are presenting this business deal as a political victory of the ruling party.”
The White House referred questions to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to requests for comment.