"Kazatomprom acknowledges secondary placement of shares and global depository receipts by the Company’s majority shareholder, Joint-Stock Company “Sovereign Wealth Fund “Samruk-Kazyna," reads the statement.
“In our interactions with the investment community over the past six months, we have continued to receive positive feedback on the Company’s strategy and value creation, with interest in seeing an increase of the free-float in Kazatomprom shares,” said Galymzhan Pirmatov, Chief Executive Officer of Kazatomprom. “Samruk-Kazyna’s announced placing effectively reduces its ownership position to approximately 75%, and it is a positive step towards further improving the liquidity of Kazatomprom’s shares.
“We have seen increased interest in both Kazatomprom and the uranium market in recent months, which supported the timing of this transaction. The unique approach of building both an institutional book on the London Stock Exchange and Astana International Exchange , with the domestic retail offering following on AIX, provided a great opportunity for a diverse group of interested investors to participate and own shares in the world’s leading uranium producer.”
The placement of Kazatomprom’s securities for public sale was part of the Complex Privatisation Plan for 2016-2020 (the “Plan”), as approved by the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Under the Plan, the Company was identified as a portfolio company of Samruk-Kazyna to be partially privatized, with approval to free-float up to 25% of the share capital of the Company. At the time of the initial public offering (“IPO”) in November 2018, Samruk-Kazyna sold in aggregate 14.92% of Kazatomprom’s issued share capital on the AIX and LSE. Following a secondary placement in September 2019, the total free-float increased to 18.72%. With the current secondary placement, assuming the domestic retail offering is exercised in full, the Company’s total free-float is expected to be 25%.
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