Best bank Kazkommertsbank
As hopes for Kazakhstan’s embryonic stock market soared in late June, one of Kazakhstan’s largest private-sector banks, Kazkommertsbank, was launching its first internationally listed depositary share offering. The roadshow, scheduled to stop in Geneva, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, New York and Hong Kong, was as much to position its name in the financial community as to raise funds. Global Kazkommertz Securities, Kazkommertsbank’s joint-venture partnership with Turkish brokerage Global Securities, formed in 1995 with Peter Phelps from Framlington heading it, was with last year’s sovereign global issue the first Kazakh bank to appear on the tombstone for a Eurobond.
In May last year Kazkommertsbank launched the idea for the first Kazakh investment bank, to be called Global Kazkommertsbank. For the moment, Global Kazkommertz Securities is the only Kazakh bank with a focus on capital markets. Although ahead of its time when it started two years ago, it is in a strong position now that the market appears set to take off.
Kazkommertsbank, which employs over 1,500 staff, was rated B minus in January by Thomson Bankwatch. The bank has a 29% stake in ABN Amro Kazakstan and intends to install a network of automated cash tellers.
Best foreign bank ABN Amro Bank Kazakhstan
When Paul Maxwell set up ABN Amro’s first joint-venture bank in 1993, in which the IFC has a 20% stake and Kazakh bank Kazkommertsbank 29%, there were just a handful of foreign bankers in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital. ABN Amro’s team there, now 86-strong, has been busy.
ABN Amro won the mandate for the Kazakh government’s debut Eurobond, which raised $200 million last December, introducing major international houses to central Asia’s most advanced and oil-rich government. It also worked on a $140 million export financing for US agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere with US Exim, and a dual-currency multi-instrument financing for the Tractebel subsidiary that operates Almaty’s power station.
ABN Amro is also active in the Kazakh treasury bill market. With around $260 million outstanding, and yields that topped 30% last year though they’ve now fallen to 10% it has been selling the paper to London investment houses that piled into Kazakhstan after its rating last year.
ABN Amro has made a great launch into central Asia with its Kazakh operation and an office in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, But central Asia is fast becoming a competitive market. The bank will have to keep up the pace of expansion if it is to remain ahead of the growing crowd.
