Russian companies acquire stake in KASE from Russian MOEX

The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) has gotten rid of its stake (13.1%) in the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), as announced by the Kazakhstani platform. MOEX stocks were sold to two Russian entities: Tetis Capital and Balance Asset Management, supervising Nigella and Levkoy closed-end investment funds. Currently, they hold 8.5% and 4.6008% of the shares, respectively.

In the fall of 2022, Balance Asset Management acquired more than 77% of shares of the CSKA Moscow football club from the VEB.RF state corporation. As of Oct. 11, 2024, the founder of Balance Asset Management was claimed to be Vitaly Balanovich, a financier and managing director of the Trinfico investment group.

The founders of Tetis Capital are Andrei Marsii and Alexander Voronkov. Marsii is a managing partner of Trinfico Group, who is responsible for asset management and investments in real estate. Kommersant, a Russian media outlet, ranks him among the top 250 managers in Russia. The other businessman, Voronkov, graduated from the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation and worked at Trinfico. No other details about these people are available in open sources. 

On Oct. 11, 2024, KASE announced that MOEX has left its shareholding structure and terminated its relationship. This resolution was prompted by sanctions imposed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury earlier this summer. At that time, KASE announced it would continue business relations with MOEX, taking the sanctions into account, while the National Bank — holding a 47% stake in KASE — considered acquiring MOEX’s shares directly.

KASE highlighted that partnership with MOEX contributed to a variety of projects such as trading and clearing systems modernization, the introduction of the central counterparty’s services for all stock markets, and the start of trading initiated with new financial instruments, in particular with sale and repurchase agreements with clearing participation certificates.

Timur Suleimenov, chair of the National Bank, was the first to announce that MOEX would exit KASE’s equity. He believes it was a «right and professional decision.» He specified, citing MOEX, that the sanctions would create challenges for KASE. However, he noted that sanctions imposed on Russian companies do not automatically trigger secondary sanctions on their entities, as long as they own less than 50% of the authorized capital.