Kazakhstan

Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, raised $206.7m on Tuesday night through a share placing in Kazatomprom, the country’s state uranium company. Emerging markets investors, who have been lacking new paper during the coronavirus crisis, lapped up the shares.

The Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) released initial price guidance for a tenge-denominated five year bond on Wednesday morning in London.

Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) is embarking on a roadshow to market a tenge-denominated Eurobond.

Air Astana, the flag carrier of Kazakhstan, remains committed to an IPO as part of the Kazakh government’s privatisation programme that is intended to deepen the country’s fledgling capital markets, although the timing of the deal is yet to be determined.

IPO investors have one less deal to buy this autumn after Kazakhstan fintech firm Kaspi decided against proceeding with its London listing on Monday, because of volatile markets and disagreements about valuation.

Investors are growing more comfortable with Kazakhstan following a $344m trade in Halyk Savings Bank last week, and sources are hopeful the momentum will carry on through to next year as the country’s privatisation wave continues.

Kaspi.kz, the largest payments and e-commerce company in Kazakhstan, announced on Monday that it would proceed with an IPO on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) after filing a registration document last week.

Holding Group Almex, the investment vehicle owned by Dinara Kulibaeva and her husband Timur Kulibayev, closed books on a 10% stake in Halyk Bank on Thursday, sold via a marketed sale of global depositary receipts in London and Astana.

As IPO investors are considering the advantages of Kaspi, the Kazakh fintech and e-commerce firm seeking to list in London, its CEO, Mikheil Lomtadze, talked to GlobalCapital about the share sale and the advantages of being the Alibaba of central Asia.

Kazakhstan is becoming a prominent feature of equity capital markets, with a number of deals from the country in the market this month. Sources say that they are seeing new interest from investors who have shown little interest in Kazakh risk before now.

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Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, has offloaded a small part of its stake in Kazatomprom, the state-owned uranium mining company, via an accelerated bookbuild on Wednesday evening.