Tag Archives: Central Asia

Uzum becomes Uzbekistan’s first tech start-up valued at over $1bn

By Andrei Skvarsky. Uzum, an Uzbek provider of digital services including e-commerce and online banking, has become Uzbekistan’s first technology start-up with a value of more than $1bn through a recent round of financing. Uzum raised $114m in a combination of Series A funding, which was led by Bengaluru-based venture capital firm FinSight Ventures, and… Continue Reading

Dubai hosts outsourcing event for Uzbekistan

DUBAI, UAE, February 16, 2024 (IT Park, Uzbekistan) – On February 15th, the Uzbekistan Outsourcing Conference in Dubai was held with great success, organized by the Ministry of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan and IT Park. The event proved to be a significant gathering, hosting over 100 leading experts and members of the… Continue Reading

Miracle on the Chirchiq: Uzbekistan Goes All In on IT

Miracle on the Chirchiq: Uzbekistan Goes All In on IT

by Anthony Deckoff. Global IT spending climbed a negligible 0.8% in 2022 – a rate that’s expected to tick up to a sturdier 5% in the current year. But it can’t hold a candle to the rapid growth now taking place in one of the world’s hottest new tech sectors. The Central Asian nation of… Continue Reading

$150m raised in energy transition-focused IPO co-run by Sova Capital, EarlyBirdCapital

By Andrei Skvarsky. London-based brokerage Sova Capital and U.S. boutique investment bank EarlyBirdCapital have acted as joint book runners for a successful initial public offering (IPO) aimed at funding an energy transition project for emerging and frontier markets. Oxus Acquisition Corp., a Kazakh special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), raised $150m through its IPO on the… Continue Reading

Uzbek govt to relinquish control of JV with Coca-Cola in privatisation deal

The Uzbek government has pledged to sell its controlling stake in Coca-Cola Bottlers Uzbekistan, Ltd, a joint venture with Coca-Cola, as part of a current sweeping privatisation programme in the Central Asian country. Turkey’s Coca-Cola İçecek (CCI) A.Ş., one of the key bottlers in Coca-Cola’s global system, is to pay $252.28m for the 57.12 per… Continue Reading

Russian financier upbeat about Kazakhstan’s ‘undervalued’ Halyk Bank, about Kazakh economy

By Andrei Skvarsky. Kazakhstan’s biggest lender, Halyk Bank, is “fundamentally undervalued”, a distinguished Russian financier has said, citing upbeat statistics released by the Kazakh institution. For the first quarter of 2021, Halyk reported a year-on-year net profit that was 5 per cent up on the first three months of 2020 and higher than consensus forecasts.… Continue Reading

Uzbekistan’s Grand Leather Shoes pulls off buyout overseen by Bluestone bank

By Andrei Skvarsky. Uzbek shoe manufacturer Grand Leather Shoes has bought out a dysfunctional electrical heating equipment producer as part of Uzbekistan’s current sweeping privatisation programme, with Central Asia-focused Bluestone Investment Bank leading the shoe company through the $1.9m acquisition. Grand Leather Shoes, whose name in Uzbek is Grand Charm Poyafzallari, acquired a stake of 61.9… Continue Reading

Buildings in Tashkent, mountain resorts on sale under Uzbekistan privatisation project

Uzbekistan’s government plans to sell several properties, including three mountain resorts, under a real estate privatisation project announced last week. Five properties with a total floor space of 85,490 square metres (920,000 square feet) are going on sale in capital city Tashkent. They are a business centre, hotel, indoor houseware market, newspaper printing office and… Continue Reading

Uzbekistan reforms aim to build domestic capital market

By Quinn Martin, Managing Partner, Frontier.* Uzbekistan is on a roll with its economic reforms. This year alone, the country has issued a wildly successful debut Eurobond, kicked off an ambitious privatisation program, lifted restrictions on repatriation of corporate profits and floated its currency, thus eliminating a troublesome dual exchange rate system.  Investors – both… Continue Reading

Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) – August 2016 Newsletter

  “Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” – Warren Buffet AFC Funds Performance Summary The AFC Asia Frontier Fund has recorded its 6th month of positive performance in… Continue Reading

Abraaj to pay scholarships to Royal College of Art students

By Andrei Skvarsky.  The Abraaj Group, a global private equity firm focusing on emerging and frontier markets, will yearly pay scholarships for the next five years to five Royal College of Art students from Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America as part of a joint project with the London-based postgraduate school of… Continue Reading

The Funds of KCM’s group invest in Chaplin Cinemas network

ADM Capital’s funds, KCRF and KGF, members of a group of funds with the participation of Kazyna Capital Management JSC (owned by National Management Holding “Baiterek” JSC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announce completion of the acquisition of the controlling stake in Chaplin Cinemas network. Investments of the Funds will be… Continue Reading

Russia-Ukraine crisis threatens recovery in the EBRD region

The crisis in Russia and Ukraine is having a severe impact on the economies of the two countries and is threatening to slow down the recovery in the wider EBRD region – or even bring it to a complete halt. {{{?}}} The EBRD’s latest economic report predicts growth in the transition region of just 1.4 per cent in 2014,… Continue Reading

EBRD appoints new Head of Yerevan office

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has appointed Mark Davis as the new head of the Yerevan Resident Office. Davis is replacing Valeriu Razlog, who has been appointed as Senior Banker in the Natural Resources team at the EBRD’s headquarters in London. Prior to taking up the position at the EBRD, Davis was… Continue Reading

Macquarie in full control of infrastructure fund as RenCap, Renaissance Group pull out

By Andrei Skvarsky. Macquarie, a global financial services provider, has become the sole manager of a major infrastructure investment fund, an entity it used to co-manage with Renaissance Capital and Renaissance Group. RenCap and Renaissance Group ceded their co-managerial roles to Macquarie under an agreement which, via the takeover of RenCap’s stake, doubled the Australia-based firm’s… Continue Reading

Raiffeisen, Sberbank co-run Eurasian Development Bank’s Eurobond sale

By Andrei Skvarsky.  Raiffeisen Bank International AG and Sberbank CIB, a former unit of Troika Dialog, co-managed the recent successful sale of the Russian ruble-denominated Eurobonds by Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), an international institution set up by the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan. The five-year securities with maximum 8% yields made up what was the first-ever… Continue Reading

Kazakhstani banking: Accelerated lending coupled with jump in NPLs

By Rustam Botashev, Deputy Head of Research at UniCredit Securities. Kazakhstan’s bank supervisory committee has published 6M11 banking statistics, showing accelerating loan growth on the backdrop of deteriorating asset quality. We reiterate our Buy recommendations for Halyk Bank (12M TP of USD 14.3) and Kazkommertsbank (USD 9.6). Lending in Kazakhstan accelerated in June, with 1.3%… Continue Reading

UralSib hires former Barclays analyst

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian bank UralSib has hired Anton Tabakh, a former researcher at Barclays and Troika Dialog, as senior fixed income analyst. Tabakh spent several months as a freelance analyst after a brief stint with Barclays. He was senior fixed income analyst both at Barclays and at Troika, covering Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in… Continue Reading

Russia’s AMT Bank struck off

By Andrei Skvarsky. Moscow’s AMT Bank, until 2009 co-owned by major Kazakh lender BTA, has had its licence annulled by Russia’s Central Bank with effect from today. AMT has been failing to comply with “federal laws regulating banking activities” and presenting false accounts, the Central Bank said in a statement. UniCredit analyst Rustam Botashev said… Continue Reading

Renaissance hires Cherny from Interros, Goldman's Barinstein

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital has hired two senior bankers to cover operations in Russia, the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Anton Cherny has joined as the London-based head of business development. He worked for Renaissance as head of capital markets from 2005 to 2008, having previously held a senior corporate finance… Continue Reading

COMMENT: Kazakhstani non-performing loans continue to decline

By Rustam Botashev, Equity Analyst at UniCredit Securities Kazakhstan’s Financial Supervisory Agency (FSA) published preliminary banking statistics for 2009. Our view: The banking sector’s losses for the year totalled KZT 2,837bn ($19.1bn), or KZT 127bn ($0.9bn) excluding the two defaulted banks (BTA Bank and Alliance Bank). Retail loans declined by 4.8% yoy and corporate loans… Continue Reading

EBRD teams up with Kayzna to launch $300m private equity fund

By Jason Corcoran Kazyna Capital Management, the private equity arm of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, is combining with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to set up a $300m vehicle to invest in distressed companies. The fund will focus on financing of companies experiencing problems with repaying their debt. Its main task will… Continue Reading

BTA wins injunction to freeze assets of former top managers

By Ivan Anderzhanov in Moscow The English High Court has granted troubled Kazakh bank BTA a worldwide freezing injunction against the assets of former chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov and other former top managers. The bank said in a press statement that it has started legal proceedings in the High Court against Ablyazov, Roman Solodchenko, the former… Continue Reading

COMMENT: Watch Kazakhstan for Russian banks’ path out of crisis

By Rustam Botashev, Equity Analyst at Unicredit Securities Total non-performing loans (NPLs) in Kazakhstan reached 30.8% as of 1 July, but a more manageable 14.4% excluding BTA and Alliance, and we expect a gradual economic recovery to keep banks from being washed away in an NPL flood. The aggregate 30.8% figure is skewed by the… Continue Reading

JP Morgan establishes local office in Kazakhstan

J.P. Morgan announced today that it has opened a representative office in Almaty, the country’s financial capital, further enhancing the reach and capabilities of its successful investment banking franchise. The office is supported by J.P. Morgan’s industry and product teams worldwide, providing local Kazakhstan-based clients with a diversified line of investment banking products, including debt… Continue Reading