Kazakhstan: Halyk Bank makes a clean break with the past

Kazakhstan’s leading retail lender, Halyk Bank, has completed a landmark share buyback that signals that at least one of the country’s banks is well on the way to recovering from the global credit crunch.

In mid-March Halyk announced that it was buying back a near 20% stake in the bank that the authorities in Kazakhstan purchased in March 2009 as part of a bank stabilization programme coordinated by sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna.

Of the roughly 260 million shares held by Samruk-Kazyna, 213 million have been bought by Halyk Bank itself, with the balance bought by the bank’s majority shareholder, Almex group.