JULY 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – China’s Hualing group bought a 90% stake in the Georgia’s Basisbank from the EBRD and the bank’s founder, Zurab Tsikhistavi, the company said. Media reported that this is the first time a private Chinese bank had bought an overseas bank. The EBRD and Mr Tsikhistavi will both retain a 5% stake in Basisbank.
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(News report from Issue No. 095, published on July 6 2012)
FEB. 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Bank of Georgia, which holds a third of all retail deposits in Georgia, listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The Bank of Georgia is only the second international bank to list on LSE. It hopes to secure a place in the FTSE 250 soon.
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(News report from Issue No. 079, published on March 1 2012)
FEB. 16 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Britain sentenced Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former CEO of BTA Bank, to 22 months in jail for contempt of court. Ablyazov is accused of embezzling $5b. He fled to London in 2009, claiming political asylum, and has since used it as a base to finance Kazakh opposition groups.
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(News report from Issue No. 78, published on Feb. 23 2012)
JAN. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Marat Zairov, CEO of BTA Bank since August last year, resigned several days after the bank said it would have to restructure its debt repayments. Officially, at least, Mr Zairov resigned for health reasons. The Kazakh government bought an 87.5% stake in BTA in 2009 during the global economic crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
OCT. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Central Bank launched a money laundering investigation into the bank of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili two weeks after he pledged to set up an opposition party. Police seized millions of dollars from Mr Ivanishvili’s Cartu Bank. He said the raid was politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 62, published on Oct. 25 2011)
MAY 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia and the other former Soviet states endorsed current Kazakh Central Bank chief, Grigory Marchenko, to replace Dominique Strauss-Khan as head of the IMF. The IMF chief has traditionally been a European but countries from outside Europe are pressurising the IMF to pick an outsider.
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(News report from Issue No. 41, published on May 24 2011)
APRIL 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In contrast to the cool reception he received when he visited the European Union in Brussels in January, China laid on smiles and a guard of honour for Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s state visit on April 19/20.
Mr Karimov was in Beijing to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and to sign deals worth billions of dollars including an agreement to double the amount of gas Uzbekistan sells to China. The Uzbek state news website uza.uz said the deals were worth $5b and that Chinese banks had also agreed to lend $1.5b to 4 Uzbek banks for joint-ventures.
The numbers underscore just how much power and impact China can buy in Central Asia. Mr Hu hosted a similar visit to Beijing by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in February.
Over the last few years China has steadily bought up assets across the region, subverting the influence of both Russia and the West.
For the Central Asia states, China allure is not just its wealth, its proximity and its hunger for oil and gas. For now, at least, China is also less troublesome to deal with.
Former colonial power Russia has quarrelled with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan over the price of gas and the West has previously condemned human rights abuses, such as the shooting in 2005 of around 500 people at a protest in eastern Uzbekistan. China, instead, talks of jointly defeating terrorism, is welcoming and lays on the charm.
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(News report from Issue No. 37, published on April 25 2011)
DEC. 3 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank RBS sold its 82.35% stake in its Uzbek subsidiary to the Korean Development Bank (KDB) for an undisclosed amount. News reports said that on Dec. 31 2009 the RBS subsidiary held assets worth around $365m. KDB will merge the unit with its subsidiary to become the biggest foreign bank in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
NOV. 26 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh bank Nurbank said it wants to raise $900m in a share issue. In May 2010, the daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Dariga, and her son sold a 56% share in the bank through university professor Sofia Sarsenova. Ms Sarsenova now owns over 70% of the bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 2 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is considering introducing regulations to require foreign companies working in Kazakhstan to deposit 35% of their savings in Kazakh banks, Berik Kamaliyev, deputy minister of trade and industry, told a government meeting. He said the aim was to bolster the Kazakh banking sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 14, published on Nov. 8 2010)