ForteBank has postponed its extraordinary general meeting of shareholders from Aug. 14 to Oct. 29. The key issue to discuss will be the bank’s reorganization in the form of Home Credit Bank’s (HCB) accession to ForteBank.
The meeting’s agenda remains unchanged. Shareholders are to approve amendments to the methodology for determining the value of shares and global depositary receipts (GDRs) when acquired by ForteBank and make a decision on the absorption of HCB.
The list of shareholders entitled to participate in the meeting will be compiled on Oct. 3. If a quorum is not present, another meeting will take place the next day — Oct. 30.
The meeting has caused public concern. The Qazaq Association of Minority Shareholders (QAMS) believes that ForteBank plans to acquire shares from minority shareholders. This is precisely why the methodology for determining the value of securities is expected to be discussed at the meeting.
Furthermore, ForteBank is set to absorb HCB, meaning all assets and liabilities will be transferred to Forte, and HCB will cease to exist as a standalone legal entity. ForteBank initially denied plans for the absorption of HCB. The acquisition of HCB has not yet been finalized.
ForteBank is owned by Bulat Utemuratov, the sixth-richest Kazakhstani, according to Forbes Kazakhstan, with an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion.
In late March, ForteBank’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Timur Issatayev stated that many Kazakhstanis may not even realize they are shareholders of ForteBank. The securities may have come to them from the now-defunct Temirbank, which used to pay railway workers’ salaries in shares. At the time, Issatayev noted that the shareholder structure of ForteBank is a «headache» for the board of directors.
For this reason, ForteBank failed to pay 3.9 million tenge ($ 7,250) in dividends to some of its shareholders in July, as their banking details were outdated.
