Halyk Bank stocks at the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) dropped 8.62% to $0.25, which is slightly better than the 9% plunge earlier.
The reason the bank’s stocks have been caught under pressure is the shareholder meeting today. The financial entity hasn’t yet announced the results of the meeting.
As of 12:25 Astana time, there were 349 transactions with 744,100 shares of Halyk Bank ($232,000), according to KASE.
The only message the bank made so far was the announcement of a shareholder meeting scheduled for today October 21. The key topic on the meeting’s agenda is dividend payouts: should the bank make these payments, and how much should it pay?
On April 22, the bank’s board of directors decided to suspend dividend payouts for 2021 because of geopolitical tensions, unprecedented sanctions against Russia, high inflation in Kazakhstan and around the globe and tougher monetary policy by the leading central banks.
Halyk Bank executives noted that the bank needs additional capital to stay confident amid the uncertainty and potential shocks. They also said that the bank may consider dividend payouts from last year’s revenue during the current year based on the financial results of 2021. However, they noted that will make this decision if the situation in the global economy becomes less uncertain.
«The current geopolitical crisis is one of the key factors driving up inflation and affecting economic activity around the globe. At the same time, Kazakhstan’s economy is doing quite well even in this tough situation,» the bank said.
Given the positive financial results achieved by Halyk Bank over the first six months of 2022, the board of directors decided to meet the expectations of the bank’s shareholders and suggested the urgent shareholders’ congress consider making dividend payouts from undistributed revenues the bank earned over the past few years.
It is expected that the price for one common share to be about $0.027.
The bank’s stocks on the LSE grew by 2.8% to $10.9 per share on October 20.
