Halyk Bank reports $41.6 million in losses

Halyk Bank has reported losses associated with the selling of its subsidiaries in Russia and Tajikistan: Moskommertsbank and Halyk Bank Tajikistan, according to data published on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) website.

KASE data shows that the bank estimated its losses associated with the selling of Moskommertsbank at $41.1 million. The bank lost about $1 million when it sold its Tajik subsidiary. These losses have been calculated as the difference between the transaction value and net assets value of the two banks ($45.3 million and $3.2 million, respectively). At the time of selling, Moskommertsbank had $124.8 million worth of assets, while Halyk Bak Tajikistan reported assets of $18.1 million.

The Banki.ru website shows that in February 2022 (the latest date before the Bank of Russia stopped publishing banking sector data) Moskommertsbank had assets of $284.3 million and $117.6 million of equity capital. The bank was ranked 134th in the Russian rating of banks. In other words, the transaction value was 40.1% of the bank’s net assets value.

Halyk Bank announced the sale of its Tajik and Russian subsidiaries in November and December 2022, respectively. At the time, Halyk insisted that the decision to sell was based on a comprehensive analysis of the two banks’ operations and their potential outlook. At the time, the bank didn’t reveal the names of buyers.

However, in January 2023, the Russian State Register showed that Moskommertsbank has a new chairman Anna Samuilova, who previously worked at SKB Bank.

As the Kursiv edition discovered, business structures affiliated with the Russian Sinara Group have become the new owner of Moskommertsbank. The group is based in Yekaterinburg where it owns Sinara Bank (former SKB Bank). Previously, the holding was controlled by Russian billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky and his son Alexander. Pumpyansky also owned TMK, a large metallurgic company in Russia.

When Dmitry Pumpyansky and his son Alexander were targeted by Western sanctions, they sold shares in TMK and Sinara and dropped their official positions in these companies. Initially, Pumpyansky distributed his stake in the bank among top managers of the holding but later it was bought by TMK and Sinara Group. Since February 2023, the holding controls 90% of the Sinara Bank, while TMK owns 10% of the bank’s shares.

Moskommertsbank was established in 2001. In 2006 it was acquired by Kazkommertsbank. In 2017, when Kazkommertsbank was merged with Halyk Bank, Moskommertsbank was combined with NBK Bank, another subsidiary of Halyk Bank in Russia.