Kazakhstan: Investment bankers upbeat amid the downturn

Kazakhstan’s bankers are taking a defiant stance towards the financial crisis. Despite the fact that important sectors of the economy such as banking and construction have been hit hard by the global credit crisis, which has cut off the supply of cheap foreign funding that backed their rapid expansion, investment bankers believe there is still plenty of potential business to be fought over.

“Kazakhstan’s a big country with big prospects,” says Adel Kambar, chief executive of Renaissance Capital’s central Asian operation in Almaty. He adds: “We still get investors from New York and London travelling here – nobody’s forgotten Kazakhstan, it’s still on a lot of people’s radar screens.”

While acknowledging that in the foreseeable future there’s unlikely to be a return to the large-scale public share and bond issuance that propelled Kazakhstan to centre stage in the international capital markets in recent years, Kambar says that there’s still plenty of investment banking work to be done.

“We still get investors from
New York and London travelling here – nobody’s forgotten Kazakhstan, it’s still on a lot of people’s radar screens”

Adel Kambar,
Renaissance Capital

Alongside advising local businesses there is also work from the authorities in the capital, Astana.

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