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Weekly Lists
January 25, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 29
bne:Banker
Fifth largest Kazakh lender Kaspi.kz may delist from local stock exchange ahead of IPO plans
Moldova goes ahead with sale of second- largest bank to Bulgarian investor
Shareholders in Kazakhstan’s fifth largest lender by assets, Kaspi Bank, will consider delisting the bank from the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) during an extraordinary meeting on February 8, LS news agency reported on January 18.
The bank is 94.23%-owned by KASPI GROUP, which also owns the Kaspi.kz online store and payment service. The bank’s potential delisting is connected to plans to hold an initial public offering of Kaspi.kz on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the report said.
In November 2018, the chairman of Kaspi Bank, Mikhail Lomtadze, announced plans for listing the bank on the LSE as well. Kaspi.kz will remain listed on the Almaty-based KASE, the report noted.
Moldova’s National Committee for Financial Stability (CNSF) on January 23 recommended the government to initiate negotiations for the sale of 63.9% in Moldindconbank (MICB), the second-largest local bank, deschide.md reported.
On January 22, the central bank issued permission to an obscure Bulgarian company, Doverie-United Holding, to purchase the stake in MICB. Since then, reports about the identity of the Bulgarian investor have surfaced: Doverie is controlled by one of the richest Bulgarians, Ognyan Donev.
Moldova’s financial markets supervisor CNPF took control of
a 63.89% stake in MICB from shareholders deemed to have been colluding in January 2018, with a view to selling it to a single investor.
Russia’s retail banking giant Sberbank has been named the strongest banking brand in the world, according to Brand Finance, a leading independent branded business valuation and strategy consultancy, the bank said a press release on January 22.
However, a check of Brand Finance’s website and the list of the top 500 global brands failed to confirm the claim.
Sberbank was not named as leader in any of the categories.
A check of the complete rankings places Sberbank at a still very respectable 139 in the global list of strongest brands, down from 129 last year.
Sberbank named strongest banking brand in the world by Brand Finance – or so the bank claims