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Weekly Lists
June 1, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:Banker
Demerged Bank of Georgia’s FTSE 250 launch coincides with sell-off on Italy woes
Less than 10% of money lost in $1bn bank frauds in Moldova recovered so far
The demerged Bank of Georgia Group and Georgia Capital may have wished for a better debut day on the FTSE 250. Mounting worries among London Stock Exchange investors over the threat Italy’s political unrest poses to the eurozone meant a winning start was beyond reach.
Bank of Georgia Group (LN:BGEO) saw its share price fall 40.13% to GBP18.64 on May 29, while on May 30 it lost another 2.35%
to GBP18.20 by 11:45 London time. Georgia Capital (LN: CGEO) started trading on May 29 at GBP11.00 and on May 30 by around the same time it was up to GBP11.30. Prior to the demerger, which means the two companies now trade separately on the premium listing segment of the official list of the London Stock Exchange's main market for listed securities, the group closed on May 25 with a share price of GBP31.13.
Only MDL1bn (€50mn) out of the MDL14.1bn ($1bn or nearly €900mn at the historic exchange rate) lost in massive bank frauds in Moldova has been recovered so far by the court-appointed representatives, Moldova’s central bank reported on May 29.
The funds were extended by the central bank in 2014-2015, with government guarantees, to the three banks involved in the $1bn frauds. Chisinau launched efforts to recover the money, but pace of recovery eased in 2018, when only MDL45.7mn was recovered, down from MDL307mn in 2017.
Moldova’s government, in line with the guarantees extended in 2014-2015, paid the central bank MDL13.3bn upon issuing public debt bonds. In principle, it expects to recover part of the money from the three failed banks.
The National Bank of Kazakhstan has suspended the deposit licences of Eximbank Kazakhstan and Bank of Astana until August 29, the central bank said on May 29.
The central bank cited repeated violations of regulatory require- ments as the primary reason behind the suspensions. Neither of the two banks received any support under last year’s state-spon- sored bailout programme that provided capital injections to a num- ber of lenders to write off their bad loans.
The central bank had previously suspended the deposit licence of Qazaq Banki, which similarly has not received any state support and was subject to criticisms from Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Kazakh central bank suspends deposit licences of Eximbank and Bank of Astana for three months