OREANDA-NEWS.  August 19, 2014. Joint-Stock Company Kazkommertsbank (“KKB” or the “Bank”) (LSE: KKB; KASE: KKGB), one of the largest banks in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, announces the completion of the buyback of the first part of common shares under the Option Agreement with respect to JSC Kazkommertsbank as of 15 January 2009 signed between JSC NWF Samruk-Kazyna, JSC Central-Asian Investment Company, Mr. N.S. Subkhanberdin and JSC Alnair Capital Holding (the “Option Agreement”).

The buyback was announced on 22 July 2014.

As a result of the buyback, the Bank will purchase 78,281,769 common shares, of which 27,281,769 common shares will be bought back from the minority shareholders (holders of common shares and Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs)) and 51,000,000 common shares from JSC Samruk-Kazyna. The major shareholders of the Bank did not participate in the buyback.

Therefore, the Bank has started to return government funding allocated to purchase common shares of the Bank under the government anti-crisis programme in 2009. At that time NWF Samruk-Kazyna purchased 165,517,241 common shares of the Bank for 36 billion tenge at a price of 217.5 tenge per one common share. The Option Agreement allowed the Bank and its major shareholders to buy back common shares from the Samruk-Kazyna within several years. As a result of the first part of buyback, the Bank will return more than 24.2 billion tenge to Samruk-Kazyna (payment for 51,000,000 common shares at a price of 475.3667 tenge per common share).

The minority shareholders held 54,957,296 common shares when the buyback offer was announced, and almost half of their holdings have been submitted for buyback. As a result, the number of the Bank’s common shares in free float will be reduced by almost half.

On 11 August 2014 the Bank announced the buyback of the second part of common shares under the Option Agreement. The number of common shares announced for buyback (57,000,000 common shares) will cover all potential applications from the remaining minority shareholders in full.

Following the initial buyback offer and completion of the second offer, only a limited free float of the Bank's common shares and GDRs will remain outstanding. The Bank is taking advice with respect to the listing requirements of the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") and the Kazakh Stock Exchange ("KASE") and will make further announcements with regards to this, if necessary.