Hong Kong in the running to host three Kazakh state IPOs
Country’s sovereign wealth fund owns US$70b in assets. Three firms are
Air Astana, uranium producer Kazatomprom, and Kazakhtelecom
Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, is planning initial public offerings (IPOs) for three of its major assets this year, and Hong Kong is being viewed as a strong choice as the potential venue.
Nurlan Rakhmetov, its managing director for transformation, privatisation and restructuring, told South China Morning Post that Chinese state-owned investors have shown keen interest in taking part in the IPOs, buoyed by the central Asian nation’s ambitions of reviving the 2,000-year-old Silk Road.
“They are deeply interested in taking part in the IPOs,” he said. “We have arranged several one-on-one meetings for Chinese investors to talk about investments. This is just the beginning.”
The sovereign wealth fund has assets worth US$70 billion, and a delegation is in Shanghai on Wednesday to promote the three start firms with mainland institutions and SOEs. A similar visit it planned to Russia in May.
They are flagship carrier Air Astana, uranium producer Kazatomprom, fixed line and mobile operator Kazakhtelecom.
Samruk-Kazyna is also introducing other key assets including Tau-Ken Samruk, a mining company, power generator and distributor Samruk-Energy, and shipping firm Kazmortransflot, as part of Kazakhstan’s privatisation programme aimed to reducing state control of the economy and improving corporate governance.