Central Asia regional awards

BankTuranAlem’s expansion in the CIS region in the past 12 months has been impressive, through organic growth and acquisitions. In the first four months of 2007 alone, BTA’s assets grew 18.5% to $19.4 billion. The main driver of this asset growth was the loan portfolio, which grew 66.5%. In turn, income had nearly doubled in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006. At the end of 2006, BTA outlined plans to raise $3 billion through bond issuance and syndicated loans. So far, $1.5 billion has been raised, of which $500 million came from a syndicated loan. In the past 12 months there have been many acquisitions across the CIS region. In December 2006, BTA completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Kazakh bank Temirbank and, at the turn of the year, it purchased a 34% stake in Turkey’s Sekerbank, which brought BTA to a total of 11 banking partners in the CIS countries and Turkey, and made it the largest banking group in the CIS.