AIX puts Polymetal on its index

Polymetal that redomiciled from the island of Jersey to the AIFC has been put on the AIX index / Photo: Shutterstock and Wikimedia Commons

Polymetal that redomiciled from the island of Jersey to the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) has been put on the AIX index called Qazaq Index (QI).

According to the exchange, Polymetal’s stock was added to the index on October 2. This means that currently the index includes the following stocks: Kaspi (15%), Halyk Bank (15%), Kazatomprom (15%), KazMunayGaz (15%), Polymetal (15%), Kcell (6.84%), Kazakhtelecom (6.47%), Central Asia Metal (4.76%), KazTransOil (4.58%) and Bank CenterCredit (2.36%).

In August, the AIX reported 160 transactions for $65,799 with shares of Bank CenterCredit, 570 transactions for $347,531 with shares of Halyk Bank, 235 transactions for $1,232,707 with shares of Kazatomprom, 313 transactions for $1,351,813 with shares of KazMunayGas, 291 transactions for $1.5 million with shares of Kaspi and 1,881 transactions for $2.9 million with shares of Polymetal.

Polymetal, which is one of the largest producers of gold and silver in Kazakhstan and Russia, is intended to level its stock’s liquidity on the AIX with figures on the London Stock Exchange short before the company’s delisting, Vitaly Nesis, CEO of Polymetal, said in late September.

«Even though the stock’s liquidity is gradually increasing, it is still lower than what we had before the delisting from the LSE. Therefore, our long-term plan is to restore our stock’s liquidity as much as possible. Of course, it would require more investments, a lot of talks with investors, analytics from brokerage companies and investment banks. This is why we are going to focus on this hard work for the next two years,» Nesis told journalists during the ceremony devoted to the company’s delisting from the LSE and redomiciliation to the AIFC.

In September, the average trade volume on the AIX was about $150,000 ($805,000 at its peak), while before the redomiciliation of Polymetal, this rate was about $64,000. However, even with this growth taken into account, it is significantly lower than in London.

At the end of August, Polymetal International plc officially announced that the process of delisting from the LSE was over and AIX became the only exchange for its stock.

Moreover, Nesis revealed its plan to sell Russian assets in six to nine months. As he noted, the vast majority of shareholders would support the move. ICT Group controlled by Alexander Nesis (brother of Vitaly Nesis) is the biggest shareholder of Polymetal (23.9%), followed by BlackRock Inc. (9.9%), Fodina B.V. (3.3%), executive staff (0.9%) and institutional and private investors (62%).