Today, a press briefing by Mirat Utepov, the Director of the Economics and Planning Department of the Fund, took place at the Samruk-Kazyna site. He spoke in detail about the current financial performance of the Samruk-Kazyna Group of cCmpanies and the preliminary results of 2022. 

High profit = social responsibility

According to Mirat Utepov, according to the results of H1 2022, the net profit of the Fund amounted to KZT956 billion. This is 18% more than in the same period last year. According to preliminary estimates, by the end of 2022 it will reach KZT1.85 trillion, which is also more than last year’s value. First of all, this is due to the rising cost of oil on the world market. Another important factor is the work done by the Fund to optimize non-production costs. Samruk-Kazyna conducts it not to the detriment of the employees of the group of companies. 

In 2022 their salaries have been raised from 5 to 48%, with special attention to low-paid positions and production personnel. In total, about KZT340 billion has been allocated for these purposes. Against the background of profit growth, the Fund is ready to significantly increase spending on charitable projects in Kazakhstan. Currently, charitable activities on behalf of all companies of the Samruk-Kazyna Group are carried out by the Samruk-Kazyna Trust Fund. Its budget for 2022 is about KZT10 billion, which is 33% more than a year earlier. In accordance with the instruction of the Head of State, from 2023 the Samruk-Kazyna Fund is ready to direct 7% of its net profit to charitable purposes. By the end of 2022, this amount will amount to about KZT130 billion. Thus, the Fund’s expenses for charity will increase by 13 times. 

Problematic questions 

The journalists were particularly interested in certain financial indicators of the Samruk-Kazyna group, for example, the volume of borrowings. As Mirat Utepov explained, for objective assessment of the financial condition of a company, you need to look not at the absolute value of the volume of liabilities, but at the Debt/EBITDA financial stability coefficient. According to the results of 2022 this indicator for the Samruk-Kazyna group will be 1.98. According to world standards, the standard is a value up to 3.5 and below. The volume of Samruk-Kazyna borrowings is comparable to the practice of the world’s leading companies. The Fund actively attracts debt financing for the implementation of major projects in Kazakhstan and development of domestic companies. Another issue of interest to the society is the payment of Samruk-Kazyna to the state. In 2022, the Fund paid about KZT170 billion of dividends to the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan as the sole shareholder. 

As Mirat Utepov noted, another KZT141 billion will be allocated to finance various social projects in Kazakhstan in the form of other distributions, KZT10 billion - for charity. In addition, Samruk-Kazyna annually pays more than KZT1 trillion of taxes to the budget of the Republic of Kazakhstan, raises the salaries of 250 thousand employees of the Fund Group companies throughout Kazakhstan, and also invests in portfolio companies throughout the country. 

“All the money that Samruk-Kazyna spends remains in Kazakhstan, goes to the development of our economy and support of citizens”, - Mirat Utepov summed up. In addition, he commented on the change in the credit rating of Samruk-Kazyna by the American S&P agency, as well as major recent transactions: the transfer of shares of KMG Kashagan B.V. to KazMunayGas, the refinancing of Eurobonds of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the upcoming IPO of KazMunayGas. Mirat Utepov also answered other questions of interest to journalists. 

In particular, he said that since the spring of 2022, Samruk-Kazyna has not attracted new financing in rubles due to uncertainty and sanctions risks. Priority is given to the national currency tenge. According to him, in general, the volume of borrowings in rubles by companies of the Samruk-Kazyna group was insignificant, so fluctuations in the ruble exchange rate did not have a significant impact on the business indicators of the Fund group. The full version of Mirat Utepov press briefing, including answers to journalists' questions, is available at: https://youtu.be/nuzGAuq1C1k