Alatau City Bank, formerly known as Jusan Bank, reported that Forbes Kazakhstan-listed billionaire Vyacheslav Kim finalized the deal to acquire a 100% stake in the financial organization.
«The acquisition of Alatau City Bank is extremely important for me, and I plan to create on its basis a fundamentally new financial institution for the Kazakhstani market. I thank the bank’s management for the outstanding work carried out over the past two years. I am confident that we will achieve continued success if we preserve all the best practices in place and focus on accelerated technological development,» Kim said, commenting on the deal.
The bank’s former owner Galimzhan Yessenov stated that since he acquired Jusan Bank, the team has done a lot of work on enhancing the financial institution’s operational efficiency, improving business processes and modernizing its product line.
«I am confident that with the arrival of Mr. Kim, Alatau City Bank will be able to build on these positive changes and strengthen its status as one of the leading banks in Kazakhstan,» Yessenov said.
On June 2, Kazakhstan’s Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) approved Kaspi.kz co-owner Kim’s acquisition of 97.5% of Jusan Bank. The initial bid was submitted in February, but the agency extended its review. At that same time, the businessman stated that the transaction had no connection with Kaspi.kz, where Kim holds a 21.32% ownership stake. According to Forbes, Kim is currently the wealthiest person in Kazakhstan, with a net worth of $7.1 billion.
Before the approval from ARDFM, in May, Jusan Bank announced the institution’s renaming to Alatau City Bank. The updated name refers to the name of the newly established city of Alatau in the Almaty region. Also, at the end of May, Kim announced his intent to invest $1 billion of his own funds in the city. As of June 1, Alatau City Bank was the sixth-largest bank in Kazakhstan by assets, totaling approximately $6.5 billion.
