Since 1989, Anagi has navigated every pivotal chapter in Georgia’s modern construction history. Now, with more than 400 completed projects and an annual turnover exceeding GEL 1 billion under his belt, CEO Irakli Gogolishvili is laying the groundwork for the company’s next evolution: transforming Georgia’s market leader into a regional powerhouse using the exact same principles that built its domestic dominance.

At Anagi’s headquarters, senior specialists gather regularly to evaluate upcoming opportunities. In many cases, these developments exist only in public primary sources—an announced investment, a line item in a municipal budget, a permit application, or a published architectural concept. The moment a viable prospect surfaces, Anagi’s leadership treats it as a signal to mobilize. Their analysis hinges on a few fundamental questions: Who is the investor? What is the architectural vision? What combination of talent, machinery, and capital will it take to execute? Anagi approaches these preliminary assessments with the same rigor that other firms reserve for signed contracts.

“I’d be surprised if someone simply called us out of the blue and asked us to build a 60,000-square-meter structure,” Gogolishvili says. When Anagi approaches potential clients to express interest in a project, the initial response is typically brief: “We’ll call you.” Up to a year can pass between that first meeting and the follow-up call. By the time it comes, Anagi has usually “built” the project on paper multiple times over.

This forward-looking pipeline reflects a deliberate corporate strategy. Anagi currently manages more than 40 construction sites simultaneously. Continually scanning the horizon does not mean losing focus on present deliverables; rather, it is precisely this upfront preparation that allows Anagi to execute complex, multi-tiered projects concurrently while keeping risk to a minimum.

To date, the company has completed over 400 projects spanning more than 7,000,000 square meters. Anagi Group serves a portfolio of over 200 domestic and international clients, including global construction manager MACE International, major hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott, and IBIS, as well as Georgia’s leading real estate developers, financial institutions, and public sector bodies.

For Anagi, 2026 marks the convergence of three long-term strategic initiatives.

The first priority is expanding into infrastructure. For 37 years, Anagi operated primarily as a commercial and residential builder. Within the industry, civil building construction and infrastructure work—particularly roadworks—are treated as distinct disciplines requiring different core competencies. Over the past several years, Anagi has systematically built up its infrastructure arm to capture growth in a rapidly expanding sector: public spending on infrastructure in Georgia surged from GEL 3 billion in 2018 to GEL 5.8 billion in 2025.

“We’ve spent the last four or five years building out this capability, and we’ve seen the first major results over the past two years,” Gogolishvili explains.

In parallel, the company is undertaking an internal digital transformation aimed at fully integrating artificial intelligence into its operational management.

The third pillar of Anagi’s strategy looks beyond Georgia’s borders. The group has already selected strategic partners in neighboring countries. “We hope to bring the same construction standards abroad that drove our success in Georgia,” says Gogolishvili.

Mastering Complex Engineering
For years, major infrastructure projects in Georgia were dominated by foreign contractors with the capital and international track records required for public tenders. Anagi set out to challenge that dynamic. A prime example of its progress is the construction of the new runway at Kutaisi International Airport—a project Gogolishvili compares in complexity and scale to a 15-to-16-kilometer highway. Scheduled for completion by the end of this year, the airport project served as an important milestone: “It was a breakthrough for us in terms of acquiring specialized expertise, expanding our technical fleet, and establishing a firm foothold in this market segment.”

Anagi’s roots trace back to 1989 in Batumi, during the final years of the Soviet Union. Because private corporate entities did not yet exist under Soviet law, the business was initially registered as a cooperative. Led by 24-year-old Zaza Gogotishvili, a group of Georgian Technical University graduates correctly anticipated that the collapse of state-owned construction trusts would create a massive void in the market.

Despite the civil unrest, blockades, and hyperinflation of the 1990s, Anagi delivered roughly 25 projects during its first decade. By 2000, its workforce had grown to nearly 1,000 employees. In 2008, the firm delivered its first five-star hotel, having previously expanded into the capital with its first Tbilisi project: a McDonald’s restaurant.

Irakli Gogolishvili joined Anagi in 2006 as a young financial expert coming from the Treasury Department of the Ministry of Finance. One of his first major initiatives was eliminating cash transactions entirely. “At the time, carrying sacks of cash to construction sites was standard industry practice,” he recalls. “Transitioning to digital banking made every transaction transparent and fully auditable.”

Two years later, Gogolishvili was appointed CEO—a role he has held ever since, guiding the firm through several major economic crises.

In early 2008, prior to the global financial crash, Georgian commercial banks signaled to contractors that market headwinds were coming. Anagi heeded the warning and deliberately slowed its expansion pace, even as the country was experiencing a broader construction boom. Months later, the August 2008 war broke out, bringing projects across the country to a sudden halt. Beyond its conservative cash management, state contracts helped sustain the business through the fallout: during this period, Anagi built the clock tower at Batumi’s Piazza complex, which remains one of the city's defining landmarks.

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered an even harsher blow to the sector. Contractors bound by pre-pandemic fixed-price contracts were forced to deliver projects amid skyrocketing costs for materials, labor, and logistics. While several domestic firms failed under the pressure, Anagi weathered the storm on the back of its long-standing institutional foundation—leveraging strong asset reserves, capital buffers, and financial discipline cultivated during quieter years.

Gogolishvili stresses that a company’s resilience during a crisis depends largely on the choices it makes long before trouble arrives. That foundation is built at the intake stage, when a firm decides which projects to pursue and which to turn down.

“Managing a single high-risk project is usually doable. Taking on two or three risky projects at the same time can be fatal for a company,” he explains. Consequently, Anagi routinely declines proposals that fail to meet its internal risk criteria, adhering to a core principle: growth is pursued only when risks are fully understood and manageable.

Institutional Scale in a Growing Market
Anagi’s expansion comes as construction and real estate solidify their position as the largest driver of Georgia’s economy. According to the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), value added in the sector reached GEL 15.9 billion in 2025, accounting for 17.3% of national GDP.

However, rapid growth has brought significant operational challenges. Construction costs have risen 27% since early 2022. Furthermore, a 2026 survey by the Business Association of Georgia revealed that 100% of surveyed construction firms identified a shortage of skilled labor as their primary operational bottleneck.

Anagi contends with this labor deficit daily. “Every time we think we’ve caught up with our staffing needs, our project volume expands and the cycle starts all over again—we have to recruit more personnel and source specialized talent,” says Gogolishvili. Rather than viewing this as an anomaly, management treats it as an inherent reality of the trade. “In this business, there is no such thing as a quiet year,” Gogolishvili adds. “Even if overall volume stays flat, rapid technological shifts constantly redefine how we work.”

In a volatile economic environment, completing projects on schedule remains one of the greatest hurdles facing Georgian contractors. With multi-year timelines subject to shifting global and local variables, few firms consistently deliver on time.

Over the decades, Anagi has earned a reputation for dependable execution. Gogolishvili distills the company’s operating philosophy into three core metrics: deliver on time, meet specified quality standards, and stay within the agreed budget. Maintaining an excellent reputation in construction, he notes, relies entirely on delivering on those three promises every single time.

That assessment is echoed by Nikoloz Medzmariashvili, CEO of Homer: “In today’s market, where project complexity and requirements increase daily, Anagi stands out above all for its institutional stability and sheer scale. Anagi isn't just a contractor; it’s a well-oiled system backed by decades of experience. There are many players in the market, but Anagi’s continuous financial stability, deep technical asset base, and strict adherence to international standards make it the industry leader.”

Medzmariashvili attributes the partnership between Homer and Anagi to a shared alignment of values: “When you have Anagi alongside you, with all their scale and track record, you are fully protected as a client. That security gives us the confidence to be much bolder when making commitments to our end customers.”

Engineering Benchmarks and Strategic Focus
Anagi’s technical capabilities are most evident on complex, large-scale developments. The Marriott-standard hotel on Tabori Mountain served as a showcase for the company’s full turn-key execution. Anagi delivered the 176-room property from ground-level earthworks to final interior finishing. Given the building’s complex geometry—featuring sweeping curved walls and 15-meter structural columns— execution required single-source accountability across every phase of construction.

Managing intricate, multi-component builds was similarly demonstrated during the construction of Batumi Stadium. Launched in 2017, the project marked the first time a sports facility of this scale and specification was built in Georgia. Designed to meet strict UEFA Category 4 requirements, the project required continuous coordination with inspectors who monitored every detail. Adding to the challenge, UEFA’s technical guidelines evolved during the five-year project lifecycle—including updated specs for stadium lighting—requiring real-time adaptations on site.

“Mid-project changes like that aren't anyone's fault—they're just part of the process,” says Gogolishvili. “The key was that we raised questions early and adapted to new requirements instantly.” As a result, Georgia delivered its first UEFA Category 4 stadium through a domestic general contractor.

While Batumi Stadium tested Anagi’s engineering adaptability, the Bakuriani artificial snowmaking project was a race against logistics and harsh alpine weather. To prepare the resort for the 2023 World Cup, Anagi was tasked with constructing two massive water reservoirs—with capacities of 200,000 and 100,000 metric tons—at an elevation of 2,000 meters above sea level within a window of just a few months.

“In March, we were still clearing deep snow just to build the access roads to the site, yet we delivered the completed reservoirs by the end of the year,” Gogolishvili recalls. The infrastructure has provided uninterrupted water supply to the resort's snowmaking systems ever since.

Anagi’s disciplined focus on core contracting sets it apart from many competitors. As other major Georgian contractors pivoted into real estate development to build their own residential portfolios, Anagi chose to remain primarily a general contractor.

“We believed that transitioning into a property developer would ultimately compromise our growth as a construction company,” Gogolishvili explains. He notes that firms focusing exclusively on residential developments often lose the specialized engineering capabilities required to build complex industrial plants, stadiums, or airports.

Anagi waited three decades before entering the development space in 2019, doing so under a distinct organizational structure. The business established a standalone subsidiary—Anagi Development—ensuring its primary construction operations remained uncompromised.

Today, commercial and civil construction accounts for roughly 80% of Anagi’s core business, with infrastructure representing the remaining 20%. The group plans to increase the share of infrastructure projects in the coming years—not by scaling back its civil construction activity, but by growing the overall footprint of the enterprise.

This operational model is supported by a network of specialized subsidiaries within the Anagi Group. Anagi Concrete supplies ready-mix concrete across the Batumi region; Mepster, originally the group’s internal MEP engineering department, now operates as an independent firm offering HVAC, building automation, and facility control systems; Anagi Infra focuses on highway and road construction; and through a 50% stake in GTC, the group serves as the official Georgian representative of the Austrian formwork leader Doka.

The group also holds equity stakes in hospitality assets and invests in workforce education, including plans to establish a dedicated vocational training academy for construction trades. In a market where a welder with ten years of field experience often lacks formal certification, Gogolishvili sees a pressing need to institutionalize trade credentials.

Digital Transformation and Regional Vision
Underpinning these operations is an ambitious digital overhaul. Over the past four years, Anagi built a custom Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that integrates its core operational functions: finance, procurement, warehousing, inventory management, project accounting, and HR payroll. By streamlining data flows across departments, the platform speeds up executive decision-making and reduces human error. The ERP system is already live across several major job sites, utilized by over 220 field personnel.

Before integrating AI modules into the workflow, the company overhauled its data architecture. Management standardized a database of more than 92,000 vendor line items down to approximately 29,000 unified codes, bringing all materials under a single classification system. Today, an AI assistant helps warehouse managers categorize incoming materials in real time, while executive management can monitor operational metrics instantly—such as tracking the exact tonnage of rebar delivered across all active job sites on a given day.

“Processing this volume of operational data manually would be virtually impossible without AI integration,” says Chief Financial Officer Tamar Petriashvili, who oversees the digital transformation initiative.

For Gogolishvili, technology is ultimately meant to empower the team members responsible for project execution. Each site operates under its own project manager, engineering staff, and dedicated crew. When hiring, management weighs professional competence and personal commitment equally. “A highly qualified employee who lacks a sense of ownership won't achieve great results,” Gogolishvili notes. “I want every team member to feel that this is their company, their career, and their responsibility.”

Competing on the international stage requires more than engineering skill; it demands standardized operational processes, rigorous quality control, and strict health, safety, and environmental (HSE) management. Anagi was the first Georgian construction firm to earn the ISO 45001 certification for occupational health and safety from Lloyd’s Register. The company has held the ISO 9001 quality management standard since 2011 and is currently implementing the ISO 14001 environmental management system.

In 2019, when local HSE auditing expertise was scarce, Administrative Director Mariam Dvalishvili qualified as a certified internal auditor to establish an in-house audit system. Under this framework, departments cross-audit one another to drive continuous process improvement. For international clients, these credentials offer independent verification that the contractor operates in full compliance with global standards.

Gogolishvili’s ten-year vision for Anagi rests on two strategic vectors.

Internally, the goal is to mentor Anagi Group’s specialized subsidiaries into fully autonomous entities backed by robust governance structures. Externally, the focus is international expansion.

The company plans to export the operational expertise it has refined in Georgia over nearly four decades. Target markets have already been identified: Armenia—where Mepster has already participated in international trade expos—alongside Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where Anagi is actively conducting market research.

Expanding abroad presents a new test. Operating overseas, Anagi will be an international contractor without the home-court advantage of long-standing local relationships. Nevertheless, Gogolishvili is confident that the core principles underpinning Anagi’s success in Georgia will translate effectively to new markets.

Asked if he is satisfied with what Anagi has accomplished so far, the CEO smiles: “You should never be completely satisfied with what you’ve achieved. If the day ever comes when I look back and say everything we’ve done is perfect, I’ll be sure to let you know.”