ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna on February 28 held an event for approximately 300 representatives of the diplomatic corps, large international companies, investors and bankers to present its strategy of shifting from the asset administrator to active portfolio investor role, interim results of its transformation and privatization programs, and long-term projects, the Fund said.
Samruk-Kazyna manages State shares of Kazakhstan’s national development institutions and national companies.
“The opportunity to invest in Samruk-Kazyna group of companies is unique, because the Fund brings together the largest enterprises of the country in various sectors,” CEO of the Fund Umirzak Shukeyev said. “The Fund’s Transformation Program aims to make these assets more attractive. Today Kazakhstan and Samruk-Kazyna are even more reliable option for investment than a few years ago. For example, over the past two years, Kazakhstan has climbed from 51st to 35th position among the [world] economies in terms of ‘ease of doing business’ rating of the World Bank.”
The Fund presented its privatization program for 2016-2020.
“It is planned to privatize 217 assets, which are divided into two lists,” said Director of Assets Privatization and Restructuring Department of Samruk-Kazyna Dauren Tasmagambetov. “The first list includes 45 largest companies of a national scale. Some of them, such as Kazatomprom and Air Astana, are in the priority list of candidate companies for an IPO. The decision on the public offering depends on variety of factors: macroeconomic environment, capital market conditions, and company-specific conditions. We are at the very first stage in which we focus on selecting investment banks, and assess overall readiness for IPO.”
During 2016 the Fund prepared 75% of assets from the second list (172 small and medium-sized enterprises) and started selling major assets. The implementation of major assets privatization is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.
During the event, the Fund presented its promising industrial projects.
“The Fund’s asset portfolio has four growing companies that will increase its value significantly in the next five years,” said Со-Managing Director for New Industries Development of Samruk-Kazyna Yerzhan Tutkushev. “One of them is United Chemical Company, whose main mission is to leverage off Kazakhstan’s oil and gas resources by using it for petrochemical production purposes. Backed by the Government support, United Chemical Company is developing a petrochemical cluster in Atyrau that offers investors a ready-to-use infrastructure as well as benefits of a free economic zone.”
In 2017 the UCC plans to put into operation the first stage of the free economic zone in the Zhambyl province, which will provide a plug and play infrastructure for basic and specialty chemicals production.
