Page 13 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

bne June 2020 Companies & Markets I 13
Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi generated Mongolian tughrik (MNT) 2.66 trillion ($1.01bn) in 2019 revenue, up 43% y/y. Net profit was up 38.8% to MNT1 trillion.
Eight years ago, 2.5mn Mongolians received free shares in the mine amounting to 15% of its stock. Next month they should receive their first dividends of between MNT67,500 and MNT96,480 per shareholder.
Financing railway to China
Proceeds of the IPO were to help finance the building of a railway to carry Tavan Tolgoi's coal south to China and the building of a power plant to support the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold underground and open mine in he Gobi Desert run by Rio Tinto.
Government officials now contend that Tavan Tolgoi is in a position to finance the railway construction from its profits. The first phase of the railway project will be completed next year if all goes to plan. Coal from the mine is presently trucked into China.
Meanwhile, Oyu Tolgoi and the government failed to meet an April 14 deadline to find agreement on the power plant plan. They are now mulling alternative electricity supplies, according to a statement by Rio Tinto affiliate Turquoise Hill Resources.
Four banks in Azerbaijan go under administration as pandemic and oil crisis impacts hit home
bne IntelliNews
Azerbaijan's central bank on April 27 placed four of the country's top banks under temporary administration with the asphyxiating economic effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic clearly being felt by the country’s financial sector.
Temporary administrators have been appointed for Atabank, AGBank, NBCBank and Amrah Bank, each of which are among Azerbaijan’s 15 largest financial institutions. No official explanations were given for the move, but there is speculation on the market that the banks could face closure or could be merged with other lenders. The central bank has also reduced the amount of capital Azerbaijan’s banks have to hold, implying that they were having trouble meeting the old requirements.
Companies have raised about $2.3bn in Hong Kong through IPOs so far this year, a 43% drop from the same period in 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Chinese biotech firm Akeso Inc. raised $333mn in the territory’s biggest listing in 2020 to date.
“Eight years ago, 2.5mn Mongolians received free shares in the mine amounting to 15% of its stock.
Next month they should receive their first dividends”
Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Nomura were advising the government on the IPO.
The planned sale of shares in Hong Kong was set to be the third attempt to raise money to develop Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi following the failure of international partnerships in 2011 and 2015.
Top government officials have said the country is not under pressure to devalue the Azerbaijani manat.
The oil price collapse is hitting Azerbaijan hard, just as
the previous price crisis in 2014 did. The oil and natural
gas sectors make up 45% of its $45bn economy. Baku was forced, for the first time ever, to tell BP that it would have to cut Caspian Sea oil production to help the country comply with an OPEC+ deal to stem the flow of crude to decimated markets and lift prices, while Azerbaijan’s sovereign wealth fund – the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan, or SOFAZ – has lately spent $2bn defending the Azerbaijani manat (AZN).
“Liquidity and financial sustainability problems”
A central bank source told Reuters that “all four banks had been facing liquidity and financial sustainability problems”. Interfax, meanwhile, quoted a source at the regulator as saying: “The order affects deposits totalling 7.3 billion
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