Freedom Holding considers HK share offering as part of growth plans, CEO says

By Felix Light

ALMATY, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Freedom Holding, a Kazakhstan-based financial services company, is considering a secondary public offering of shares in Hong Kong to help fund expansion plans, its CEO Timur Turlov told Reuters.

The U.S.-listed group plans to expand outside its traditional Central Asian markets and is looking to acquire or found banks in Europe and Turkey and mulling expansion in Pakistan, Turlov said in an interview at Freedom’s head office in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city.

“Our main platform is NASDAQ, where we are listed, and we are happy with our listing. We are considering the possibility of a secondary listing in Hong Kong and continue to not rule it out,” he said.

In Kazakhstan’s retail lending market, Freedom competes with larger rivals Kaspi.kz and Halyk Bank, the country’s largest by assets, with activities spanning banking, brokerage services, insurance and mortgages.

PLANS FOR ACQUISITIONS

Turlov said that Freedom, which is based primarily in Kazakhstan but operates in several other Central Asian countries and which last year received a banking license in Georgia, aimed to facilitate the integration of economies across a vast stretch of Eurasia, from Turkey to Mongolia.

Plans to found or acquire banks in new jurisdictions were a part of that aim, he said.

“Yes, we are considering acquiring a bank (in Turkey),” he said. “We can’t yet disclose the details of this transaction. But I expect that it may reach a logical conclusion within the coming months.”

Turlov said that in Europe, Freedom was considering either acquiring a smaller lender, or founding its own bank in what he called “one of the classic, continental European countries”. He declined to say which country he was considering.

In Pakistan, where Turlov last week travelled as part of a business delegation alongside Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the country, he said Freedom would likely look to establish a branch of its existing business.

Turlov said the company was not considering returning to Russia, where it sold its assets in February 2023 for around $140 million – a deal prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, Freedom said it had “completely ceased doing business in Russia”.

He said that even in the event of a Ukraine peace deal and the lifting of Western sanctions, there would be no rapid return to the Russian market.

“From a purely economic standpoint, I don’t see the right balance between risks and opportunities,” he said.

(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by David Holmes)