Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Utemuratov buys stakes in Kazakh banks

DEC. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bulat Utemuratov, a close associate of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has agreed to buy the government’s share in Temirbank and most of its stake in Alliance Bank for up to $1b, local media reported.

This is important for Mr Nazarbayev who wants to change Kazakh banking. It is made more important since Halyk Bank, owned by his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, declined to buy the government’s stake in BTA Bank in November.

Mr Utemuratov is a willing ally of Mr Nazarbayev and was an obvious purchaser of the Kazakh government’s 80% stake in Temirbank and a 16% stake in Alliance. This leaves Samruk-Kazyna with a 51% stake in Alliance Bank.

One question is why didn’t Mr Utemuratov buy the government’s entire stake in Alliance Bank? Another is, what is he going to do with the banks when he does finish the deal?

In any case, it is a step forward for Kazakh officials who plan large changes in Kazakhstan’s banking system. The government bought the stakes in the banks in January 2009 to stop them from collapsing during the global financial crisis and has been looking to cash them in for some time.

As well as selling its stakes, it wants the banks to reduce their proportions of bad debt and also to unite their private pension funds under one scheme run by the Central Bank.

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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)

TeliaSonera accused of unethical business in Kazakhstan

DEC. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Swedish newspaper accused telecoms company TeliaSonera of making unethical deals in Kazakhstan. TeliaSonera bought telephone networks from two companies with close connections to the head of the Kazakh presidential administration, Karim Massimov, in 2012 for about $200m, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Kazakh president’s grandson becomes CEO

DEC. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Apparently unconcerned about potential nepotism allegations, Temir Zholy, Kazakhstan’s national railway company, appointed Nurali Aliyev, the 28-year-old grandson of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to be the CEO of TransTelecom, one of its subsidiaries. AO TransTelecom owns mobile communication infrastructure.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Activist receives award in Kazakhstan

DEC. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vadim Kuramshin, a Kazakh activist serving 12 years in prison for extortion, received an international award for human rights first given to Nelson Mandela in 1985.

The award by Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize to Kuramshin will likely irritate the Kazakh authorities. Kuramshin had been an increasingly prominent human rights lawyer in Kazakhstan until he was jailed in December 2012. Kuramshin’s supporters have said that the charges have been fabricated.

He specialised in defending prisoners’ rights. Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era prisons are notoriously dangerous. They are run by gangs and rioting is common.

The Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize was first awarded to former South African president Nelson Mandela when he was serving a life sentence in a jail in 1985.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

High-profile officials on trial in Kazakhstan

DEC. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor-General has accused Bergei Ryskaliyev, the former governor of the Atyrau region, of stealing 71b tenge ($460m).

But the charges against Mr Ryskaliyev don’t stop there. The latest allegation is that he illegally allocated land for the construction of mosques and that he had links to unspecified terrorist groups.

It been a fast fall from grace for the 46-year-old Mr Ryskaliyev. He was governor of the Atyrau region until August 2012 when he, officially at least, was moved aside because of ill health. Since then Mr Ryskaliyev has been on the run with his brother, dodging the Kazakh authorities.

It was also in August 2012 that his main ally, Aslan Musin lost his job as head of the Kazakh presidential staff, one of the most influential jobs in Kazakhstan.

In Kazakhstan’s rough and tumble world of politics and business, your so-called “krisha” or roof is one of your most important defences.

And if your krisha goes, you’re in trouble, analysts said. “The legal action against the Ryskalievs might be a power play towards the more prominent Musin,” said an Almaty-based analyst who wished to remain anonymous.

Also in August 2012, Mr Ryskaliev’s sister Gulzhanar was accused of a high-profile murder and the family assets in Switzerland were frozen upon allegations of money laundering.

The case of Mr Ryskaliev is important to foreign investors as it shows how closely aligned politics, corruption and crime is in Kazakhstan.

It’s not the only high-profile corruption against officials, though.

A court in Geneva froze the assets of former mayor of Almaty, Viktor Khrapunov, in November 2012 on suspicion of money laundering and in Astana, Anar Meshimbayeva, former chairwoman of the statistics agency, is facing charges of stealing 750 m tenge ($4.9m) in 2009.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Kazakhstan looks to reduce bad loans

DEC. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Bloomberg News in London, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov said one of his main objectives was to cut the proportion of nonperforming loans in Kazakh banks to 10% by January 2016. Non-performing loans currently make up about 30% of its banks’ portfolio.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Kazakhstan to drop visa requirements

DEC. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will drop visa regulations for citizens of 34 OSCE member states by the end of 2014, media quoted a spokesman for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev as saying. The spokesman didn’t specify which of the OSCE’s 57 member states would be given visa-free status.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Polygamy increases in Kazakhstan

DEC. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A growing inequality divide is fuelling an increase in polygamy in Kazakhstan, Bloomberg News reported. The Bloomberg story quoted an Almaty-based socialite as saying that it has become fashionable for wealthy Kazakhs to have more than one wife. Polygamy was popular in Kazakhstan before it became part of the Soviet Union.

(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

China plans investment in Kazakhstan

DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — China plans to invest a reported $8b into Kazakhstan’s coal mining sector, Kairat Karmanov, the head of the state-owned Kaznex Invest, told journalists. He said the investments are earmarked for Kazakhstan’s industrial heartland around Karaganda. China has been investing heavily in Kazakhstan over the past decade.

(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Virgin Media looks to enter Kazakhstan

NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank’s IFC is considering a loan to Britain’s Virgin Media to help it enter a clutch of new markets — including Kazakhstan — media reported.

Virgin Media’s main shareholder is the flamboyant entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and its potential entry into Kazakhstan should be equally colourful.

All this is good news for Kazakhstan’s mobile sector, currently dominated by a joint-venture between Sweden’s TeliaSonera and Kazakhtelecom and another joint-venture between Russia’s VimpelCom and a private Kazakh company, and its growing hoard of mobile users.

It also groups Kazakhstan with more traditional emerging markets such as Turkey, Poland and Russia.

Kazakhstan’s mobile phone sector has been growing fast and looks set to continue to grow. Mobile phone penetration is rising rapidly in Kazakhstan — recent figures put the rate at 130%. Like other emerging markets, mobile phones have become the must-have accessory for the upwardly mobile, if that is the correct term.

BeMyMobile ltd, controlled by Virgin Mobile Central & Eastern Europe, officially applied to the IFC for the loan. If the bid to the IFC is successful, Virgin will expand as a provider of wireless services into Poland and Turkey first and will prepare to break into the Russian and Kazakh markets. It wants to be a so-called virtual provider. This mean that it won’t build any new infrastructure but repackage existing deals.

Virgin Media signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kazakhtelecom during British PM David Cameron’s visit to Kazakhstan at the end of June.

If Virgin media does enter Kazakhstan it may also offer other services such as internet and satellite television, similar to its current operations in Britain.

(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)