ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan’s Samruk-Kazyna Group of Companies will offer various ownership interests in 10 companies at an electronic auction by the end of July. The share sale will take place as part of the Comprehensive Privatization Plan for 2016-2020 approved by the Government of Kazakhstan, Samruk-Kazyna said.
According to the Managing Director for Asset Optimization, Member of the Management Board of Samruk-Kazyna, Berik Beisengaliyev, the State Commission for Economic Modernization under the Government of Kazakhstan approved the sale of different packages of shares in 10 Samruk-Kazyna companies. “Auctions for 5 assets of JSC NC Kazakhstan Engineering, 3 assets of JSC National Atomic Company Kazatomprom, and 2 assets of Samruk-Energy JSC are scheduled to take place until the end of July,” he said.
In addition, the State Committee agreed on an open two-stage tender for the sale of 100% of shares of Airline Euro-Asia Air JSC, owned by national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, in the near future.
Speaking about the approaches to the privatization of the companies of Samruk-Kazyna JSC, Beisengaliyev said that the Samruk-Kazyna Fund would provide a balance of interests of the state and potential investors. Thus, he explained, in privatization of large companies the Fund reserves the right to require for the preservation of the activity profile, jobs, conditions of collective agreements and business plans for the development of the sold company. These provisions are prescribed in the sales contracts, and in case of their violation the Fund reserves the right to terminate contracts with investors.
The Government of Kazakhstan in December 2015 approved a new privatization plan for state assets, involving either complete or partial sale of state-owned companies. The plan, designed for 2016-2020, involves privatization of 783 companies in Kazakhstan, 217 of which belong to Samruk-Kazyna Group of Companies.
The assets of the Samruk-Kazyna Group of Companies have been divided into two lists. The first list includes 44 major assets, seven of which will be offered for an IPO between 2018 and 2020 (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, Samruk-Energy, Kazatomprom, Kazpost, KazMunayGas, Tau Ken Samruk, and Air Astana). The sale of the remaining 37 assets from List No.1 will start this year and will be completed by the end of 2018. The second list includes 173 medium-sized companies that do not have high socio-economic importance. They will be sold primarily through the electronic auction until the end of 2017.
