Отправлено 10 September 2008 - 12:26
Wire: BLOOMBERG News (BN) Date: 2008-09-09 15:36:11
Kazakh Billionaires' Bank May Raise $288 Million for Expansion
By Nariman Gizitdinov
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- AO Eurasian Bank, owned by three Kazakh billionaire metals magnates, plans to raise $288 million by year's end to fund expansion in the commodities-rich former Soviet republic.
Almaty-based Eurasian Bank plans to sell 7.5 billion tenge ($62.7 million) of preferred shares on Kazakhstan's stock exchange as the bank seeks to develop its retail-banking operations and to increase lending to small and medium-size businesses, Timir Jantayev, deputy chairman of the bank's management board, said today in an interview.
The bank may also sell 15 billion tenge of bonds in Kazakhstan as well as seeking a $100 million loan in November or December from banks in the Middle East, Jantayev said.
Eurasian bank is wholly owned by Eurasian Financial and Industrial Company, in which Alexander Machkevitch, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev each has a 33.33 percent stake, Jantayev said in his presentation to a conference in Almaty today. Machkevitch, Ibragimov and Chodiev, the founders of Kazakhstan-based ferrochrome, iron ore and aluminum producer Eurasian Natural Resources Corp., share the 334th spot in the Forbes world rich list with fortunes of $3.3 billion each.
Eurasian Bank, Kazakhstan's ninth-largest, is considering an additional $300 million bond sale in February ``if market conditions are favorable,'' Jantayev said. The bank increased its share capital by 4 billion tenge in June to 12 billion tenge, he said.
Kazakhstan's $100 billion economy has grown an average 10 percent a year since 2000 as the price of oil and metals surged, sparking a construction boom. The nation's economy expanded 5.4 percent in the first half of 2008, almost half the pace in the same period a year earlier, as banks curtailed lending because of the global tightening of credit.