About Me

Ilgar Hajiyev was born in Armenia in 1973 and lived most of his early life in Azerbaijan. He started his first business - a small shop - aged 17, and earned his first million dollars at 19. By 1994 he was a major supplier of construction materials in Azerbaijan and in 2000 he started working in the construction development sector. Seeing the urgent need for affordable, quality housing in the newly-independent country, he established the Akkord Construction and Industrial Investment Corporation in 2005. Akkord soon became the largest property developer in Azerbaijan and was valued at around $4 billion by the American investment fund "Kazimir" in 2008. The company’s construction projects extended beyond Azerbaijan to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Albania. Akkord’s success made it a ripe target for a ‘raid’ by politically-connected Azerbaijani officials. In 2010, after receiving increasing threats to his and his family’s personal security, Mr. Hajiyev was forced to give up 75,5% of his shares in the company to interests connected with Azerbaijan’s ruling family.

After surrendering control of his business in Azerbaijan, Ilgar moved to Moscow. In 2013, he established SDI Group, a residential and infrastructure construction company,in partnership with the Azerbaijani-Russian businessman God Nisanov.

Between 2013-2019, SDI completed state contracts in Russia worth a total of 8 billion rubles ($133.5 million). SDI’s most notable projects are the large residential real estate projects Pirogovskaya Riviera, VernadSky and Akkord Smart Kvartal.

Far away from Azerbaijan, Ilgar again found himself under pressure from representatives of its ruling family. Fearing for his and his family’s safety, he left Russia in January 2019.

On 25 January 2019, Nisanov’s representatives raided SDI Group’s offices and threatened its employees with violence unless they gave up control of the company. Without Ilgar’s consent, control of the three projects was transferred to Nisanov and the son of Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan.

Ilgar now lives in the United States and cannot return to Azerbaijan or Russia because of fake criminal investigations opened against him in both countries.

In January 2020, Ilgar established the London-based Center for Business Transparency and Countering Corporate Raids in Russia. He continues to seek justice for the unlawful actions taken against him and his businesses in Azerbaijan and Russia.