Tuesday, June 12, 2012 -
Kazakhstan’s national welfare fund on Tuesday said it may sell shares in the planned ‘People’s IPO’ program for as high as $68 apiece in an attempt to encourage responsible investing.
Launch of the People’s IPO begins a large-scale privatization program of state assets that will provide ordinary citizens with their first opportunity to buy shares of major state-operated companies.
Voicing his thoughts on the pricing the shares, Samruk-Kazyna deputy chairman Kuandyk Bishimbayev said he was asked “if the shares would cost 100 tenge [$0.68] each.”
“Frankly speaking, we wouldn’t like to sell the shares of the national companies at 100 tenge each. We are calling the citizens to treat the shares responsibly and seriously. If they cost 100 tenge, it will be the same as buying a chewing gum or a candy,” the Tengrinews.kz media outlet reported the welfare fund chief as saying.
Bishimbayev was speaking at a press conference during a meeting to discuss implementation of the People’s IPO program held in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s business capital.
State authorities are trying to set an affordable price while making individual investors consider if they are ready and serious about this investment before buying stock, he said.
“We will not announce the prices yet, but I think it will be from zero to 10,000 tenge [$68] per share,” said Bishimbayev.
Kazakhstan’s deputy Prime Minister Kairat Kelimbetov, who formerly headed Samruk-Kazyna, concurred with that logic.
“The goal is to explain that we are not offering a panacea or a replacement for deposits, etc. It would be wrong to think so. Our task is to say that this is just another tool in the broad financial field and it has its advantages,” Kelimbetov said.