Renowned financial analyst Eldar Shamsutdinov has outlined the details of the sale of «Bereke Bank» and expressed doubts about its correctness.

On his Telegram channel, he writes:

«Sberbank was a major player in Kazakhstan with a significant market share, and companies approached the bank for loans with the understanding that the deal would not be influenced by internal elites. After the imposition of sanctions, no one could take control of such a giant except for ‘Halyk,’ which acquired part of the credit portfolio. The agency, ‘Baiterek,’ and the former top management of Sberbank made the right move; the structure of the deal was undoubtedly the best at that moment.

By acquiring the bank, removing it from the sanctions list, and putting up a new sign, the purchase was made with a significant discount, a complex exit structure, and various covenants, which served as an example of skill, including swaps.

However, there is a nuance—ambitions and necessary political savvy. The entire discount was reassessed, leading to paper profits. ‘Baiterek’ took on ‘Bereke’ with a large discount on its balance sheet, but at the end of the year, it reassessed the fair value of the asset based on the book value, recording a paper profit of KZT 30.2 billion.

It may raise doubts that a bank, just emerging from complex relationships with previous shareholders, losing a significant market share and counterparties, and being unable to issue cards, could be worth an entire book. Even ‘Halyk’ (P/B 0.76) and BCK (P/B 0.36) don’t trade that way.

Now an even more ambitious task is to explain to Qatari emirs why a bank, just out of sanctions with a disrupted client network, should be worth more than the book value. If selling it cheaper, a loss will have to be recognized.

Selling ‘Bereke Bank’ to foreigners is very ambitious, unless there are some Italians behind it completely unrelated to major oil projects.»