Kazakhstan

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.

Kazakhstan printed a €1.15bn dual tranche bond on Wednesday from a book of more than €3bn at its peak, at levels that lead managers said were 6bp inside the curve for the seven year and 4bp inside for the 15 year. Bankers away from the deal saw fair value differently but conceded that there could be different views on the calculation.

The Republic of Kazakhstan has impressively tightened initial price thoughts for a euro dual tranche seven and 15 year bond, but rivals are saying that the issuer started very wide. Bankers on the deal disagree.

Nordgold, a gold mining company with assets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Canada, has mandated banks for its first bond in more than six years.

Kaspi.kz, the largest payments company in Kazakhstan, announced on Monday that it would proceed with an IPO on the London stock exchange after filing a registration document last week.