It is planned to sell about 89.5 th. of common shares of Kazakhtelecom JSC in February at KASE - head of Samruk

/INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN, Astana, January 24, 07, title of IRBIS/ - About 89.5 th. of common shares of the national company Kazaktelecom are planned to be sold at Kazakhstan stock exchange (KASE) in February, informed Sauat Mynbayev, the chairman of the board of Kazakhstan holding for state assets management Samruk JSC. "The sale of 4.6% of shares of Kazakhtelecom was to be executed in two stages: first stage - subscription among an unlimited number of physical entities at an unorganized securities market; second stage - sale of shares at an organized market among pension funds, which is about 20% out of these 4.6%," he noted, speaking at an expanded board of the state holding on Wednesday. "The second stage we assume to fulfill in February," he added. S. Mynbayev said that in the course of selling shares of Kazakhtelecom to the public the largest interest showed residents of Almaty (Alma-Ata), Astana and Karaganda. As it was reported, in accordance with the resolution of the government dated October 17, 2006 the decision was adopted about sale of 4.6% of common voting state-owned shares of Kazakhtelecom - in all 497,597 items from the state-owned stock of the company. Initially it was presumed that 90% of this stock (447,837 shares) would be sold to public, and the rest part (49,760 shares) - at the organized (exchange) market. As it now turns out, 20% of the specified share holding are to be sold in February at KASE. Subscription for shares of Kazakhtelecom, assigned for sale to public, was completed at the end of 2006. Price range for now sold shares was set within 25-33 th. KZT (current 125.71/$1), bids for purchase were accepted from November 30 till December 10 in departments of Kazpost JSC throughout the republic from an unlimited number of physical entities. At that the cut-off price for bids was set at 30 th. KZT. Bids in the volume of no more that 25 shares, corresponding to the afore-mentioned range (25-33 th. KZT), were fully satisfied. Investment financial house Resmi JSC acted as the financial consultant of the state holding Samruk while offering these shares. Shares of Kazakhtelecom have been included in Kazakhstan stock exchange's (KASE) official "А" listing category. Kazakhtelecom is the leading communication statement of Kazakhstan, which takes the dominating position at the domestic market of telecommunications At the end of 2006 stockholders with ownership share of common stock of Kazakhtelecom were: state holding Samruk (55.6%), BODAM B.V. (16.9%), The Bank of New York (10.2%), Сentral Аsian Industrial Holdings N.V. (9.6%). Board of the state holding Samruk, established by the order of the head of the state in January of this year, currently has state-owned stock of 18 more companies, including the largest Kazpost JSC, companies on electric network management KEGOC JSC, the oil and gas company NC KazMunayGas JSC and the railway company Kazakhstan temir zholy JSC (KTZ). Kazpost, KEGOC, KazMunayGas and KTZ are completely state-owned companies. In the nearest future, according to the resolution of the government dated October 24, 2006, state-owned stock of three more companies will be transferred to the state holding. [2007-01-24]