Recently, the Chairman of the Management Board of First Heartland Jusan Bank (Jusan Bank) JSC, Aybek Kayyp, has publicly praised the successes his team has achieved in normalising the bank’s financial standing. His bravado stems from the Moody’s rating agency assigning long-term ratings B1 with a stable outlook to the bank for its deposits in national and foreign currencies.
In the past, we have numerously and meticulously commented on the story of how Tsesnabank JSC that, for a number of years, had belonged to the family of Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, one of the First President’s closest allies, first «drowned» but then was rescued by Akorda at the expense of the budget and «gifted» to the Nazarbayev University and the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools funds that own it through First Heartland Securities JSC.
Below you will find several links to the key articles on the subject.
The End of Tsesna Corporation;
Tsesnabank’s Hidden Agenda. Part I;
Tsesnabank’s Hidden Agenda. Part II;
We have chosen to comment on Aybek Kayyp’s interview to Forbes.kz titled «Jusan’s Success Story» because of the political mistakes he has made. We cannot say why he has made them. Perhaps, due to his relatively young age and many years of studying abroad, he simply didn’t attach significance to the data he presented. However, it is also possible that all this is but a beginning of an attack against Adilbek Dzhaksybekov and the businesses affiliated with him (currently or in the past). Of course, the purpose of this attack would not be to tarnish their reputation but rather to force them to return the debt money to the bank.
To confirm this idea, let us present several extended quotes relating what Aybek Kayyp has allowed himself to say during the Forbes interview (text in bold by KZ.expert).
«As you know, Tsesnabank JSC was a troubled bank on the verge of bankruptcy. Non-performing loans constituted more than 90% of the bank’s assets. In order to solve the accumulated problems, the bank had to undergo an immediate capital increase which was performed by the new shareholder, First Heartland Securities JSC. The capital increase constituted 70 bln tenge.
Tsesnabank’s non-performing loan portfolio constituted a gigantic sum of more than 850 bln tenge. Many questions were raised in relation to the loans themselves, to how they were provided, to how things were monitored and to the managerial practices in general. Also, one must understand, that a bigger part of this gigantic sum consisted of loans provided to big businesses whose wealthy owners chose to shuffle off all the problems on to the bank».
«As of today, about 40 claims related to the big corporate loans whose total amount equals 252.4 bln tenge have been filed. Of them, 28 have already received the court’s rulings according to which 189.8 bln tenge are to be collected. Also, 19 big non-performing projects amounting to 116.8 bln tenge have been declared bankrupt. Claims against all the projects bearing the marks of fraud have been filed to law-enforcement agencies.
Such a consistent and well-planned operation has borne its fruit. During the period of 2019 — 2020, the bank had restored a large part of its assets that, at the moment, were considered troubled. Also, a bigger part of the loans had started to perform again. In these cases, the business owners understood our key message that the new team had no room for corruption, only for honest and transparent business».
After this kind of statements on the part one First Heartland Jusan Bank’s Chairman of the Management Board, even the least informed Kazakhs mush have begun questioning the actions of Akorda and the Library.
For instance, why had the top-management and the majority shareholders of Tsesnabak not been held responsible when it became clear that the bank’s financial state was critical. Who made the political decision to rescue it? Why was this rescue performed at the expense of the public, on the money of the Kazakh taxpayers?
We can hardly expect the authorities to answer these and other related questions. Therefore, Akorda and President Kossym-Jomart Tokayev may continue telling the people that everything is changing for the better — the Kazakh citizens are not going to believe it.
For they understand full well who had abused his authority in order to save Tsesnabank and then handed it over to the education institutions whose main purpose is to immortalise his name. And because they understand it, they will continue doing what Nazarbayev has done, is doing and will do — to make money by any means possible with total disregard to the law, the interests of the nation and the public needs.
As for Aybek Kayyp and the political mistakes he’s made in the Forbes.kz interview, he is likely to get off easy. Or perhaps they will explain him the difference between the things to be said in public and the things to be said in certain circles.
And we will have to disappoint Mr. Kayyp who, at the end of his interview, said the following.
«Our structure employs the best global practices of endowment funds that allow for stable functioning of universities. Currently, the leading world universities such as Harvard, Yale, Duke and others act as part of a big financial system that functions on the basis of different investment and hedge-funds. This kind of organisation allows the universities to have stable financing and conduct advanced research as well as academic activities according to the highest standards.
We have adopted this practice, and our mission now is investing in the human capital. As it has already been said, it is the advanced modern education that lays the foundation for Kazakhstan’s future prosperity, and I am delighted that Jusan Bank is involved in this development».
The thing is that it is not only money that is being invested in the future of Kazakhstan through the structure he chairs. What is also being invested is the understanding that, in this country, the one who has more rights in always in the right; the rich one is the one who’s managed to steal more; and the one capable of holding on to power is the one abusing it the most.
So, Kazakhstan will definitely have a future. But will it be prosperous? That’s the question.
We, for one, seriously doubt that…
