President Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva were present at the opening ceremony of this 5-star hotel, which was previously called "Janub" and now "InterContinental".

But whose is this 7-story hotel that the head of the country opened in 2021?

Before moving on to the owner of the hotel, let's remember that the demolition of the "Janub" hotel, built in 1950, began in 2012. At that time, the government was preparing to arrange the accommodation for tourists during the Eurovision contest to be held in Baku. The hotel was built in the Soviet era and was owned by the state for a long time. Later, the hotel and its property were sold. In 1998, it became an Open Joint Stock Company. After that, how did this area pass to the current owners of the hotel?

"Janub" hotel

Shahin Alizadeh, a shareholder of "Janub" hotel, talked to Bizim Yol newspaper. According to him, in September 2014, the privatization of the OJSC’s land was discussed at the general meeting of the enterprise. In response to the excuse of the owner of the controlling stake of the hotel that "there are not enough funds in the budget of the joint-stock company for us to privatize it in the name of the enterprise", the minority shareholders offered to take over the financing saying "if the land needs to be privatized, let's privatize it". They valued the land in the said area at the value of half a million manats. The minority shareholder said that although the enterprise's land was put up for auction, no one saw the announcement. At that time, the shareholder noted that black lines were deliberately placed over the address and the price of the object's area in the advertisement in "Mulkiyyat" (proprety) newspaper, making it unreadable, under a confidential seal. According to information, the following announcement was blacked out as well. This was confirmed even by the head of the press service of the State Committee on Property Issues, Gulu Khalilov. Shareholders said it was a new game designed to keep them out of the auctions..

The electronic version of the newspaper we received does not contain those blacked out parts. Thus, we can see that both of the announcements refer to the same building. As can be seen from the table, the proposed price for the privatization of the land is 38,618 manats. In other words, 1 “sot” (hectares/100) of land is valued at 2920 manats.

One of the shareholders mentioned in an interview that "the land near Sahil metro station is for sale. The market price of 1 square meter of land in the said area is 10,000 manats. The market price of 0.13 hectares of land is 13 million manats. The property worth 13 million manats is worth 38,600 manats to the committee, at the initial cost price - 340 times cheaper".

At the same time, it should be noted that the authorized capital of "Janub" OJSC was 798,162 manats. At that time, there was no official information about who won the auction. But in the 2014 edition of “Mulkiyyat” newspaper, it was written that the object was sold at auction on December 9. At the meeting held in 2014, it was noted that "AZORS" LLC is the majority shareholder with 99% of the shares of "Janub" OJSC. But who runs this company?

At that meeting, the representative of the majority shareholder, Khagani Ahmadov, informed that the relevant package owner is Naze Shahverdiyeva. The same company still manages the hotel. But who is the mentioned Naze Shahverdiyeva?

Shahverdiyeva Naze Hasan acts as a legal representative in at least 2 companies according to the register of commercial legal entities. This is "Naida-S" manufacturing commercial firm and "Karamli village farm" LLC. Naze Shahverdiyeva is the sister of Beyler Ayyubov, the head of the Presidential Security Service. But these companies are not the only wealth of Shahverdiyeva. According to the list published by the then Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2017, Naze Shahverdiyeva is also the owner of "Sakit Gol" and "Shaki Palace" hotels.

In addition, according to the Register of State Procurements, in 2020-2022, "Convenient and reliable cooperation in business development" operating under “State Agency for Small and Medium Business Development” and later "Birga Invest" MMC leased an office located at Ashiq Molla Juma street 44 owned by Shahverdiyeva. It cost 39,000 manats per year.

As can be seen from the Register of State Procurements, the name of the tenant in the first contract between the parties for 2020 is mentioned as Shahverdiyeva Naze Hasan gizi (Resant Plaza). In other words, the name of the building is "Resant plaza". When referring to the official website of the Resant group, we can see that this company is directly the owner of the "InterContinental" hotel. In addition, its assets include 35 hotel and restaurant chains and other real estates.

In addition, the registry data shows that Naze Shahverdiyeva also owns 3 restaurants in Seaside boulevard.

Apparently, the hotel and restaurant chain in the center of the city belongs to Beylar Ayyubov's sister. But how did Naze Shahverdiyeva get so much wealth?

Although Resant Group employee told us to help to contact Shahverdiyeva, they later became unresponsive

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n_dahsovrY&list=PLKmk98vly7TShg50skwdutVLrbWkYPJll&index=3