Alfa Bank Kazakhstan to be sold very soon

According to the bank’s representatives, the negotiations between the bank and a potential buyer have reached a final stage and the deal may be finished within days.

On April 11, Andrey Timchenko, CEO of Alfa Bank Kazakhstan said that the entity is going to sell its business in the country and negotiate with potential investors. He also mentioned that about a dozen different investors examined the bank’s books.

Responding to a request by Kursiv.media, the bank said that the negotiations with investors have reached a final stage. «We are going to announce a deal within days,» reported the press service of the bank, though it declined to name that investor.

Meanwhile, Russian media believes that there are three main candidates, who may want to buy the Russian bank’s subsidiary in Kazakhstan. At least, three sources familiar with the issue told Frankrg.com that one of those potential investors is Freedom Finance. The company has not confirmed this information.

The short list of those who may want to acquire Alfa Bank consists of Bank RBK (which belongs to Vladimir Kim), Eurasian Bank (part of Eurasian Financial Company where three owners Mukadaskhan Ibragimova, Patokh Chodiev and Alexander Mashkevitch have 33.3% stock each) and Orbis (controlled by Farukh and SukhrabMakhmudov).

Alfa Bank has been struggling with a deficit of cash since April 6, when Western countries imposed blocking sanctions against Alfa Bank. As the bank wants to prevent all its cash from being withdrawn, the bank has limited transactions with withdrawals, transfers and exchanges. Alfa Bank Kazakhstan also started finding a buyer for its loan portfolio of $223 million.

In addition, sanctions have been imposed against the key shareholders of Alfa Bank Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and German Khan. In order to deflect the hit from at least 50% of the bank’s shares, the owners have changed their shares like this: Andrei Kosogov with 40.96% (earlier he owned just 3.7% of shares), Mikhail Fridman 32.86%, Pyotr Aven 12.4%, UniCredit S.p.A. 9.9% and the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research 3.87%. German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev have withdrawn as shareholders of ABH Holdings SA in Luxemburg.

As of March 1, 2022, (data from the National Bank of Kazakhstan), Alfa Bank Kazakhstan was ranked 11th with $2 billion of assets among 22 other banks in Kazakhstan. The loan portfolio for that day was about $1.2 billion or 62.1% of all the bank’s assets. It is 9 p.p. higher than the average rate in the sector (53.1%).

The share of NPL in Alfa Bank is lower, though, by 3 p.p. than the average rate in the sector (3.48%). Moreover, the bank has created provisions for $51.2 million or four times more than NPL ($13.7 million).

Last year Alfa Bank Kazakhstan increased its assets by 19.4% or $328.9 million. The loan portfolio of the bank grew by 58.5% or $460.8 million. In terms of providing loans, Alfa Bank is ranked second (+27.9%) out of 13 AQR participants. At the same time, the rate of NPL in Alfa decreased last year by $4.2 million.

Net revenue of the bank reached $72.9 million in 2021; this takes the fifth result after Halyk Bank, Kaspi, Sber and Forte. This is 32% growth ($17.6 million) if compared to the 2020 result.