Balchug Capital investment fund of Amaryan brothers has become the new owner of Metropolis, one of the largest shopping centers in Moscow. Before that, the company had bought the Pulkovo Sky business center in Saint Petersburg, Russia from the Finnish companies EKE and Vicus.

Until 2016, Balchug Capital, founded by David and Vardan Amaryan, was known as Copperstone Capital, which changed its name due to an insider trading scandal following SEC regulatory requirements.

The Balchug Capital investment fund has become the new owner of the Metropolis shopping and entertainment center (205,000 square meters), which is located in Moscow. This was reported by Vedomosti, citing a representative of the investment fund and the IBC Real Estate consulting company which had carried out consulting for the respective transaction,  which was approved by the Russian Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment.

The representative of Balchug Capital did not specify the amount of the transaction, informing only that the price was " appealing. " Ricci|Blackstone's partner Alexey Sigal estimated the market value of Metropolis in the range of $60-63 billion. Sayana Tsirenova, director of transactions in the field of real estate at Tekhnologii doveriya (former PwC) company, said the transaction was in the range of 60-65 billion rubles. Denis Platov, the director of Capital Nikoliers Markets Department, said that the sale of Metropolis is the biggest deal in the Russian commercial real estate investment market in the last few years.

Balchug Capital fund manages more than $250 million in assets. It was founded in 2009 by Armenian brothers Vardan and David Amaryan. Before that, David Amaryan worked for five years in the Troika-Dialog investment company, which was founded by Russian Armenian businessman Ruben Vardanyan. In 2013, as Forbes wrote, the hedge fund was the second most profitable in Russia. Until 2012, the company was called BCD Partners (behind closed doors). Then the brothers chose their childhood name. The Armenian village where they spent their summers is located next to the mountain called Pghndzakar, which is translated into English as Copperstone.

In March 2016, the fund lost 60 percent of its funds and paid a $10 million fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused the fund and a number of other companies of insider trading. After signing a settlement agreement with the SEC, the company was renamed Balchug Capital. Before that, Balchug Capital bought the Pulkovo Sky business center (76,000 square meters) in Russia from the Finnish companies EKE and Vicus, which is located next to Pulkovo Airport in Saint Petersburg.

The company will continue to invest in Russia's high-quality real estate sector, the demand for which will always be at a high level, David Amaryan told the newspaper.