Portrait: Seymar OJSC (Kazakhstan)

/IRBIS, Nov 6, 01/ - following material is published due to 10th anniversary of Seymar OJSC (Almaty) - one of leaders of private sector of Kazakhstan economy. The anniversary is going to be celebrated by the company on November 07 of current year. As applied to the financial market of republic Seymar OJSC is interesting first of all by that it owns 61.8% of charter capital of Almaty Kus OJSC (Almaty, production and realization of poultry farming products) - intensively developing company of real sector, which stocks and bonds are traded today at Kazakhstan Stock exchange (KASE) under highest category of securities. The material is published based on data of SEYMAR OJSC and was not rechecked by IRBIS agency. All responsibility for trustworthiness of given below information is carried by management of the company. Positive experience of restoring whole range of agriculture enterprises is in its actives. From a small private commercial firm in 1991 with a stuff of 10 people and annual turnover in the amount of 100 th. dollars SEYMAR has grown into industrial-investment corporation, where more than 6 thousand of employees work now. Annual turnover of SEYMAR OJSC accounts nowadays for 100m dollars. A consortium in 1992 and then concern SEYMAR were created. Year 1994 was marked for the concern by the opening of leather-processing plant in Beriktas village. In 1995 activity of SEYMAR OJSC was enlarged by production of bread products at Kapshagay (89.2%), and in 1996 - at Zhetykara industrial plant. At the same time the concern received under management 72.09% stocks of Abay battery farm, that hadn't been working till that for two years. From that date, beginning a participation of SEYMAR in poultry keeping, the story of industry revival had begun. Abay battery farm was restored for less than a half a year and its modernization still continues. At the beginning of year 1997 the first production was received there. Successes of SEYMAR in industry were confirmed by winning in the tender for management of Kaskelen bird reproducer (state block - 48%). Meanwhile, in autumn of same 1997 year the concern won tender for concession of state block of Priishim elevator and bought out 40% stocks of Zhalagash rice elevator (one of the largest in country for today). Later, in August 2000 one more branch of SEYMAR OJSC was created, ASTYK ASTANA-2030. For today this company is one of the biggest processors of grain in Kazakhstan. A flour of mark "Astanalyk", produced by this company, became well known outside Kazakhstan. The year 1998 became really memorable for SEYMAR company when all those enterprises, that were under management of company, were handed in an ownership to performed all investment obligations concern. There were Included factories on the base of which one of well known in CIS territory battery union Almaty Kus was created. During already three years this company has been dominating at the market of poultry farming production of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, having actually 75-80% of the market of densely populated Kazakhstan region - Almaty and Almaty oblast, and more than 30% of the market of Kazakhstan. Charter capital of Almaty Kus accounts for KZT1.830bn. Almaty kus was the first industry enterprise that went to the exchange last year. At that, stocks of Almaty Kus were included into listing of category "A", in other words, in the list of most liquid securities. 45,000 bonds for the amount of 4.5m dollars at 14% APR were issued in the first issue. In April the company completely paid out for borrowing more than600 th. dollars on interest payments. PAMC (77%) and Kazakhstan banks (22%) became main buyers of securities. For today Almaty Kus has more than 2,000 shareholders. At that, it's planned to attract one more shareholder - European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. Recent action on attracting of public funds became unexampled for Kazakhstan. Almaty Kus company, which was granted the status of "national", made available for everybody its privileged stocks. Within this issue one and half million stocks of Almaty Kus for 100,000 dollars at 15% APR of fixed dividends were issued. Have succeeded to put in order the stable process of capital attracting, the company performs production modernization. Almaty Kus enterprises possess modern egg sorting equipment Moba, that capacity is 120 thousand eggs per hour. Besides, the best in SIC veterinary laboratory Bio Check allows fully control epizootic state of production and quality of company's production. At that Almaty Kus has already guaranteed a significant increase of production volume at its enterprises. The growth of enterprises capacity will be provided not only by equipment and veterinary control but also new kind of birds - Hy Line, imported in summer. It is characterized by high productivity (by 70-80 eggs more former cross "Alatau"), survival and good adaptation. On of these days Hy Line gave the first production. Already in November the increase will be 1m eggs and by the end of year - 6m. In general, Almaty Kus is going to reach annual production of 500 million eggs by year 2003. At that it's planned to grasp not less than a half of Kazakhstan market and go to CIS markets. Particular, the Scheme, according to which the market of Almaty and Almaty oblast was "conquered", will be applied in Moskow oblast. 5 egg and 5 meat battery farms will be acquired there. Investments into their re-equipment will cost 35-40m dollars. Almaty Kus national company recently started the process of opening large subsidiaries around the country. Fresh production will be provided to seven regions of Kazakhstan with the help of new auto park of lorry-refrigerators. The activity of another poultry keeping company of SEYMAR OJSC - Almaty Broiler, created this year, is very successful. The company produces poultry meat and products of chicken processing: Almaty Broiler consists of three production lines: Avat bird reproducer, Alekseevka bird reproducer and Almaty battery farm "Bertra", acquired for 1.8m dollars. About 5m dollars will be put into their modernization that will allow increase production capacities to 10 thousand tones of meat per year, automate production process etc. SEYMAR OJSC intends take out its broiler production at the level of CIS and open up Russian markets particular. Poultry farming direction of the corporation is provided by mixed fodder for Kapshagay mix fodder plant that is also in the ownership of SEYMAR. Due to performed now active re-equipment and modernization the plant will be able to give out more than 420 tones of mix fodder per day. At the beginning of this year SEYMAR corporation in addition to agriculture, invested into unexpected for most sphere - paper production. On the basis of thorough marketing research it was revealed that this niche has a great potential in Kazakhstan, that rises proportionately the progress in food industry. Within program of import replacement branch of SEYMAR OJSC - Kazakhstan Kagasy was founded, which in February started a realization of project on construction and launching of carton-paper factory in Abay village of Almaty oblast. This factory is unique for Kazakhstan and Central Asia by its technical capabilities. The modern equipment here will give the first production by the Day of sovereignty. The plant is able to produce more than 45m square meters of carton per annum (30% of the market of Kazakhstan) and more than 100 tones of paper per day. Abai paper factory equipped with modern technique should influence export - import ratio in Kazakhstan and will allow say about renaissance of industry in the republic. Till now the import of paper and carton in Kazakhstan exceeded volumes of own production and export. SEYMAR OJSC will invest into this paper factory 45- 50m dollars. It's worth to remark one more direction of SEYMAR OJSC activity - development of soy in Kazakhstan. So far, the republic had to either buy soy abroad or rely only on special American program GSM-12. However, SEYMAR OJSC in summer of this year within import replacement program began new project. Agrosoy enterprise created for this purpose enlarges sown area (to 20 th. hectare), works on creation of processing fodder factory etc. In general, SEYMAR is realizing now 12 large investment-industrial projects. Apart from grain, battery farming, paper and other directions investment portfolio of SEYMAR has included recently financial services. The company became the shareholder of IrtyshBusinessBank OJSC (IBB). IBB - one of successfully developing regional banks of Kazakhstan. It's enough to say that it is the third Kazakhstan bank, performed requirements of the National Bank of Kazakhstan on transition to international standards. At that IBB is an active member of Kazakhstan financial institutions and trade unions, in particular, Deposit Insurance Fund, Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, Association of financiers of Kazakhstan. Head quarter of IBB is located in Pavlodar. Five subsidiaries of the bank (in Astana, Almaty, Semey, Uskemen and Ekibastuz) work in a single modern ABS "New Athens" on the basis of SUBD Oracle. All subdivisions of IBB are connected with system of distributed work Lotus Domino. High level of automatization and technical equipment of bank were several times marked as by financial analysts as well as by technical specialists. Since high temps of banking system development of Kazakhstan required transition to another qualitative level of work, at meeting of bank shareholders it was decided to increase size of authorized capital of IBB and new strategy of development was adopted. It is based on an idea of bank transition to general national level while keeping and development of everything positive, worked out by bank during 8 years. The priorities of IBB are improvement of capitalization, and also conditions of credit and deposit portfolios. While favorable price conditions for raw materials and bless of money in the economy, perspectives of IBB should give feasible results by the end of year. Anyway, stuff of IBB in the third quarter demonstrated an effectiveness of its work. Volume of currency balance of IBB rose by KZT795.6m, reached on October 01 KZT 7,487.8m. Another important parameter of the bank - liquid assets- has increased significantly - 2.6 times. It accounted for KZT1,484.2m that more by KZT907.2m than in the middle of summer. Another indicator of assets liquidity - volumes of investing of bank into securities - has risen by 4.9 times. An increase of assets of IBB was possible due to the growth of client base (more than 7,000 corporative and private clients) and attraction of additional funds. Legal entities, natural persons and other banks actively deposited into emergent deposits of the bank. This way it was attracted 2,6 times more funds (KZT904.9m) than for the whole previous period of bank activity. As a whole, residuals on current accounts and demand deposits accounted for KZT1,476.4m. In a range of general parameters of IBB, receiving of additional funds from ABR is an important event for last time. Due to this borrowings of IBB have increased to KZT569.9m. Therefore, successful activity of SEYMAR OJSC during already 10 years allows build great plans. The corporation actively develops about 20 large investment projects, which will be realized nearest 2-3 years. Each project captures whole part of the industry: several factories or companies. It's assumed that next year the company turnover will account for $200bn. One of the priorities in activity of the company remains to the exchange. Positive experience that was acquired by SEYMAR last two years at KASE in the point of attracting of capital, will be used furthermore. Apart from exchange, entering SIC markets remains the main goal for the company. The portrait of any company will be incomplete if say only about positive moments. Besides problems with state bodies (several non-based inspections), some difficulties with salary payment, pension payments, took place at SEYMAR, but they are overcome now. The corporation contributes significant financial resources into restoration of standing idle enterprises. High quality modernization (cheap and non-updated equipment will cost more), as a rule, distracts significant money from turnover. SEYMAR OJSC does everything possible to improve work conditions. Not randomly, main principles of SEYMAR corporation are justice, trust, development, rationality and harmonicity.