LONDON (Reuters) – Kazakh banking and fintech firm Kaspi.kz
The company, which controls the third largest bank in Kazakhstan and operates a payments and ecommerce business, said it planned to sell shares held by owners including Baring Vostok funds, Goldman Sachs, Kaspi.kz board chairman Vyacheslav Kim, and management including Chief Executive Mikheil Lomtadze.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Kaspi.kz had decided to try again for a London listing after Yandex’s planned purchase of Russian online bank Tinkoff established a comparative valuation and appeared to be well received by the market.
Kaspi’s popular mobile app has made it a household name in the oil-rich Central Asian nation of 19 million. But it sought to stress in its statement the growing share of non-bank income in its consolidated profit which comes from ecommerce and payments, sectors boosted by the pandemic.
The Kaspi app has, for example, been used by many retailers both to sell goods through its marketplace and to accept payments, the latter option commonly available even at corner shops as an alternative to cash.
Kaspi outlined growth plans on Friday including expansion into new businesses such as online travel and geographies such as nearby Central Asian countries and the Caucasus region.
The company did not say what stake its shareholders intended to sell or how much they were looking to raise. Previously, sources told Reuters it was aiming for $500-700 million.
Kaspi said it would also offer its shares on the Astana International Exchange. It is already listed on another local bourse, the Kazakh Stock Exchange, but the stock’s free float is tiny with little trading activity.
Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are acting as joint global coordinators of the deal and, along with Renaissance Capital, as joint bookrunners.
(Reporting by Rachel Armstrong and Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Carolyn Cohn, Jason Neely and David Evans)
