Tsezar Chocheli

Tsezar Chocheli (Georgian: ცეზარ ჩოჩელი, born on 10 January 1968) is a Georgian businessman and politician, CEO of the Georgian Beer Company and a Member of Parliament in 2003–2004 and since 2020.

Tsezar Chocheli was born on 10 January 1968 in Leningori (modern-day Akhalgori), at the time in Soviet Georgia's South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.

His family comes from the now-deserted village of Gezevreti, also in South Ossetia.

One of the wealthiest men in Georgia, his role in the private sector has been closely linked with the various Georgian authorities since the 1990s.

He has two brothers, Lasha and Iago, who have been his business partners since the launch of his enterprise in the 1990s.

Originally a small business using a few brewing pots, it grew to become one of the leading beer providers in Georgia in the 1990s and became a limited company with Chocheli as the sole director in 1997.

Launching his career in 1991 in his hometown of Akhalgori with the Lomisa brewery, Chocheli has built a business empire throughout the years that's included major conglomerates, including the Zedazeni beer, the Natakhtari soft soda company, Barambo, and several energy, construction, and financial groups.

Chocheli received a degree in trade economics from Tbilisi State University in 1991, around the time of Georgia's independence declaration.

Tsezar Chocheli is married and has three children.

Shortly after graduating university in 1991, 23-year-old Tsezar Chocheli founded with relatives and friends the Lomisa brewery in his hometown of Akhalgori.

The company's name was based on the Lomisoba holiday, a local annual religious celebration that involves brewery.

In 1999, a controversial financial investigation that has been attributed by a corrupt maneuver within the administration of President Eduard Shevardnadze led to the closure of Lomisa's operations for six months.

In parallel to his role in the private sector, Chocheli has also been involved in politics since his election as Chairman of the Akhalgori Municipal Assembly in 2002.

Nonetheless, he remained close to the authorities and resigned his position as director of Lomisa in 2002 to join politics.

In 2002, he was elected as Chairman of the Akhalgori Municipal Assembly and later that year, as the municipality's gamgebeli (prefect).

During his term, a controversial movement of Russian troops in the village of Garubani, under his jurisdiction, caused tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow.

Originally an ally of President Shevardnadze, he was elected to Parliament in 2003 to represent the Akhalgori Majoritarian District, a post he kept until his appointment by President Saakashvili as Governor of Mtskheta-Mtianeti.

From 2003 to 2005, he launched, along with investors, several corporations, including carboard producer Dandi, construction group Interplast, investment group Mixor, confectionary Barambo, cement factory Berta, and others.

A leading figure in his region, Tsezar Chocheli was the For a New Georgia (FNG) nominee for the Majoritarian District of Akhalgori in the 2003 parliamentary elections.

FNG was the rebranded form of the Citizens' Union of Georgia, a party backing Eduard Shevardnadze, that was launched following the split of several intra-party factions.

In 2005, he co-founded the soda company Natakhtari.

In 2007, he sold Natakhtari to giant Turkish holding Anadolu Group and became a shareholder of its Georgian affiliate Efes Georgia.

At various times, he was a business partner with Kakha Okriashvili (owner of the PSP pharmacy network) and Natia Turnava (at the time a Deputy Minister of Economy).

His governorship coincided with the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and large reconstruction efforts that followed and he resigned in 2012 after the victory of Georgian Dream in the parliamentary elections.

Tsezar Chocheli's political career has been closely associated with Akhalgori, his hometown in the Mtskheta-Mtianeti region that has been since 2008 under the control of the Russian-backed South Ossetia separatist republic.

In 2009, Barambo became the largest confectionary plant in the South Caucasus.

In 2009, Chocheli acquired Liberty Bank through his company New Energy's subsidiary Euro Oil.

Two yars later, his brother Iago would purchase the media channel Telecompany Georgia, which would be contracted by the Ministry of Defense to diffuse patriotic programs, before being sold to Tamar Chergoleishvili, a journalist and wife of NSC Secretary Giga Bokeria.

His involvement in a 2010 deal to privatize the state-run Iron Sleepers Company, Georgia's only railroad tie factory, led to his arrest twice in 2013, although the case made by prosecutors has been assessed by civil society organizations as having been politically-motivated due to his affiliation with the United National Movement.

Despite his political affiliations, he has remained a major investor in Georgia to this day.

In 2010, Chocheli purchased the only railroad tie factory in Georgia from the state.

At the time, many of his private holdings were managed through his brother Iago, while Tsezar Chocheli was considered to be one of Georgia's largest private employers and employed thousands of IDPs.

In 2011, Mixor founded the Georgian Beer Company (GBC), which would produce the Zedazeni beer.

GBC would later own local rights to RC Cola, opening a distribution factory meant to serve local and African markets.

While holding various public positions until 2012, Tsezar Chocheli remained actively involved in the private sector.

Despite legal proceedings in 2013 that saw the confiscation of most of his assets, Tsezar Chocheli announced a 23 million-euro investment to launch a Georgian coffee brand in November 2013.

After a failed run for Parliament as an independent in 2016, Chocheli co-founded the Progress and Freedom party in 2020, which he merged with the Strength Is in Unity electoral bloc and was elected to Parliament in that year's election.

In April 2016, Interplast and a Chinese investor signed a memorandum to open a cement factory in Senaki, a factory that would break ground in June as part of Georgia's economic rapprochement to China.

The large majority of Chocheli's private sector projects have been based in Shida Kartli and Mtskheta-Mtianeti, the regions making up the central part of Georgia and under economic pressure linked with the Russian occupation of South Ossetia.

Tsezar Chocheli sits on the Executive Committee of the Georgian Judo Federation, of which he is the Vice-President since 2018.