Bank TuranAlem to increase its stake in Russian Slavinvestbank to 49.9% till the end of the year

/INTERFAX, Almaty, May 27, 05/ - Bank TuranAlem (BTA) plans to increase its stake in Slavinvestbank to 49.9% from 15.6% till the end of the year, Saduakas Mameshtegi said. "Today BTA's stake in Slavinvestbank's authorized capital is 15.6%, at that, BTA has agreed with other participants of the Russian partner about purchasing their stakes", - he said. He says these deals will be made according to options made before, which presume stage-by-stage purchase of the Russian bank's stakes. Mameshtegi says on April 7 of this year bank completed a deal on purchasing 48.9% of shares of International investment bank CJSC. He did not exclude the possibility of increasing BTA's stake in that bank up to control one within the closest several years. "We have come to Armenia's market intending to increase our shareholding to control one within the closest several years", - Mameshtegi said. He says during the remaining period until the end of the year BTA does not plan to buy regional banks in CIS, but plans to open several branch offices and additional offices on the base of already existing in this region banks- partners. Besides, BTA plans to open its representative offices in Kishinev, Saint Petersburg and Kazan. BTA's strategic plans, Mameshtegi says, comprise covering by its network of representatives and partner banks all most important economic centers of CIS, having invested about $90 m. for this till the end of 2008. "Our today's presence in CIS is a natural evolutional way of financial group's development, so BTA considers its coming to MIC markets the right step", - Mameshtegi said, having marked that stake of CIS countries projects financing in bank's loan portfolio two years ago was several percents, and at present this indicator 20%. According to his data, this year bank plans to invest over $500-600 m. into CIS projects, main part of which will be spent for crediting clients in Russia. However major market for the development, Mameshtegi says, for BTA is still Kazakhstan. "We never overestimated profitability of foreign investments in comparison with operations in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan was and still remains the major market for BTA", - he said. At present BTA's corporate group has representative offices in Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Yekaterinburg, Baku, Dushanbe, Tbilisi, Bishkek and Shanghai, and also strategic partner relations with Slavinvestbank, Omsk-Bank, Transbank (Ukraine), Astanaeximbank (Byelorussia), BTA Silk Road Bank (Georgia), Volzhsko-kamskiy joint-stock bank (Kazan) and Agroinkombank (Astrakhan). BTA's shareholders are Austrian Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich AG, EBRD, American company IFC and Dutch FMO, several legal entities and individuals, and also bank's management. [2005-05-27]