Billionaire Bulat Utemuratov mulls buying Temir and Alliance Banks: media

Billionaire Bulat Utemuratov plans to purchase Alliance Bank and Temirbank, Bloomberg.com writes citing two informed sources. They have not disclosed any additional information on the deal. Verny Investments Holding, currently partially owned by Utemuratov, refused to make any comments. Samruk-Kazyna also said that it could not disclose information on potential investors because of a confidentiality agreement. According to the analyst from Russia’s Alfa Bank Jason Hurwitz, “given the track record for foreign investors in Kazakh banks, competition may be limited to local buyers”. “It will be hard to sell these banks without a discount to book value,” he said. Earlier Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev instructed Samruk-Kazyna to withdraw from the capitals of BTA Bank, Alliance Bank and Temirbank within one year. According to head of Alliance Bank Maksat Kabashev, the cost of Alliance Bank and Temirbank may range from $500 million to $1 billion. On February 27 deputy chairman of Samruk-Kazyna Yelena Bakhmutova said that the fund was considering merging the two banks. The fund is open to suggestions from investors. Purchasing Alliance Bank and Temirbank may become Utemuratov’s next step in his advancement into the financial industry after he sold ATF Bank to Italian group UniCredit SpA (UCG) for $2 billion in 2007. The deal was a 5-fold return of his investments. Unicredit has signed a contract to sell ATF Bank to KazNitrogenGas owned by businessman Galymzhan Yessenov. ATF Bank is currently one of еру five biggest banks of Kazakhstan with a network of 17 branches and 111 sales offices that employ 3,300 employees. The bank’s own capital made 67.7 billion tenge (around $450 million) in 2011. Utemuratov controls Forte Bank and Kassa Nova Bank - lenders No. 27 and No. 29 in Kazakhstan. Their combined assets total at 80 billion tenge ($533 million). His Verny Investments Holding is based in Astana and manages assets in oil and gas industry and telecommunications with the total value of $4 billion. In February head of the holding Timur Issatayev expressed interest in the plans to merge Alliance Bank and Temirbank and noted that he wanted to find out about more about preserving of competitive advantages of both assets before taking any decisions.