Azerbaijan gets another chance

The birth of Azerbaijan’s capital markets has been continually predicted, but has never come to pass. Now a tiny IPO is raising renewed hopes of access to one of the richest frontier markets. Will this time be different?

Even by the standards of the Caucasus, a region not noted for its booming equity markets, this month’s planned IPO of Azerbaijani online payments company GoldenPay is expected to be tiny. The total deal size is unlikely to top $10 million, and most of the shares are tipped to be taken by Baku’s younger retail investors, attracted by the prospect of buying into a home-grown tech story.

For local market participants in Azerbaijan, however, the offering has acquired a significance out of all proportion to its size.

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