Freedom Holding Corp. Shares Are Traded on Nasdaq Starting Today

Today, October 15, Freedom Holding Corp. celebrates its debut on the Nasdaq Capital Market. For now, it’s the only company from all the post-Soviet countries to be listed on Nasdaq – one of the two largest American stock exchanges.

The listing on Nasdaq will not involve raising capital, said head of Freedom Holding Corp. Timur Turlov at a news conference in New York on October 14. According to him, no new funds for the company or its largest shareholders are needed, so raising money was not a goal.

As part of the the uplisting procedure, the company moves from trading stock on the OTCQX Best Market, which offers services for foreign companies that are already listed on a qualified international stock exchange, to the Nasdaq main platform with higher requirements and more volumes of trades. 

«We hope that access to Nasdaq will help us capture a good accurate trend, and we can anticipate further growth of shares valuations due to the potential increase in demand for our stocks, while offers remain the same,» said Turlov.

Currently, Turlov personally holds 72.99% of the company with the rest on the market. According to the Freedom Holdings head, the company went through two rounds of private placement in the U.S. and raised about $40 million two years ago.

«The business is in steady progression, financial indicators are improving year by year, and last reports reveal a net profit of $8 million,» the financier said.

According to Turlov, the capitalization of Freedom Holding as of October 13 was almost $800 million. «We have grown quite well just in anticipation of the listing, waiting for the last week,» he said.

Listing on American soil and transformig into a U.S. public company was a goal we have been working on for more than six years, Turlov said.

«We solved several problems at once, including structuring the entire holding, its legal arrangements and gathering the entire business. This was challenging. But now we were able to prove that we can show the same level of transparency as the largest American corporations do. It’s all about the reliability and transparency that we offer our customers, as well as technological effectiveness, a good price or excellent investment ideas,» he emphasized.

After holding absorbed all assets, the company filed two annual reports.

«Actually, we performed a retrospective audit, as well as examined all our current activities, so we even experienced challenging circumstances such as when auditors stayed with us for more than four months a year,» Turlov said.

In addition, before being listed on the U.S. stock exchange, Freedom Holding was scrutinized by various U.S. financial agencies.

«Many U.S. officials tried to find out who our clients are, and estimate reputational risks associated with the region. We managed to prove our reliability by providing the necessary reports and information,» said the financier.

And now, the Nasdaq listing means that Freedom Holding shares is open for a wide range of investors in the United States.

«A very large number of funds and institutional investors have restrictions on investing in companies that do not have a listing. These restrictions no longer apply to us. We get the opportunity to rely on the money of those investors who invest in large market assets, it’s kind of a ‘public story.’ Now it’s easier for retail investors in the U.S. to trade our shares. So, the fact that we were listed does not guarantee great demand, but removes many barriers», said Turlov.

According to the Freedom Holding head, a lot of work should be done by the company to get good share performance in the future.

«We need to be here for a solid basis, have direct communications with institutional investors and stock market professionals. And we will do our best to demonstrate to the market our readiness to disclose information, our transparency, our constant presence on the market», said Turlov.

Freedom Holding Corp. — This is an American public holding company, incorporated in accordance with the laws of the state of Nevada. The holding owns assets in various jurisdictions, including Kazakhstan, and provides financial and brokerage services. Freedom Holding has subsidiaries in Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany and Cyprus which carries out its financial operations.