Minority shareholders of ATFBank are taking through court the recognizing of abortions during deal for purchasing of shares of Kazakhstan bank by Bank Austria

/INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN, Almaty, February 18, 08/ - QVT Fund LP, owing with more than 10% preferred shares of Kazakhstan commercial ATFBank, addressed with suit to specialized interregional economic court of Almaty in relation to Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG (is included to group UniCredit). As had informed on the press-conference on Monday in Almaty the representative of the lawyer Sergey Vatayev, "the group UniCredit, acting through Bank Austria, and purchasing the majority shareholding of ATFBank, had broken the law about joint stock companies". Minority shareholders are stating, that Bank Austria had broken the requirements of contention of notification about purchasing of shares of ATFBank, not specifying in proper way the supposed price of purchasing. Except this, S.Vatayev continued, according to terms of deal, Bank Austria intends to distribute the net income of ATFBank for year 2007 in favor of former shareholders of bank and "by that will deprive the legal shareholders of ATFBank with their legal rights". He also noted that while purchasing of shares of ATFBank Bank Austria had broken the requirements of legislation about contention of compulsory suggestion to other shareholders about selling of shares belonging to them, and also laws about estimation activities and maintained the estimation of property without corresponding license. Thus, as S.Vatayev told, QVT is asking the court to "consider the non- observation by Bank Austria of order of shares' purchasing and to oblige it to make the alienation to non-affiliated entities of part of shares of ATFBAnk belonging to it, exceeding 29% voting shares of ATFBank". Except this, minority shareholder is striving for ban for Bank Austria to use the net income of ATFBank for last year for payment of additional remuneration to shareholders, having sold their shares to respondent. QVT Fund LP is the global hedge-fund with offices in New York, London and Taipei, manages with assets in size more than $11 bn. Its investments to securities of Kazakhstan exceed $200 m. As it was informed, Bank Austria Creditanstalt (is included to group UniCredit) in the middle of November 2007 purchased 92% shares of ATFBank for $2.118 bn. and is striving to reduce its stake to 100%. ATFBank by results of year 2006 had taken 13-th place by volume of assets among banks of CIS in the ranking Interfax-1000: Banks of CIS, prepared to Interfax-CEA and 3-rd place among Kazakhstan banks. [2008-02-19]