Yessimov–Yessenov: How a "family business" transformed the country’s largest fund into a private hedge fund to cover banking holes
“Journalists in several countries are increasingly focusing on Galimzhan Yessenov and Akhmetzhan Yesimov, figures long embedded in Kazakhstan’s corruption ecosystem. Their intricate financial arrangements involving Samruk-Kazyna and ATFBank have gained a reputation of their own, as both men appear to operate openly, showing little concern for scrutiny.
The creation of the mega-feeder — the Samruk-Kazyna fund — should deserve not one but two Nobel Prizes in Economics, satirically joke journalist colleagues. The first should be given to the one who thought of driving all the monopolies of Kazakhstan into one "investment holding," modeled after Singapore. And that is the nearly 80-year-old Nursultan Nazarbayev. The second prize should go to the one who figured out how to implement it — and that is the 69-year-old Akhmetzhan Yesimov. Under him, the system of deceiving the state and the people of Kazakhstan has become refined in its perfection. Samruk-Kazyna does what it wants with state money, as it likes, does not pay dividends, ignores the rules of fund allocation, driving money into the risky ATFBank owned by Akhmetzhan Yesimov’s son-in-law — Galimzhan Yessenov — and generally displaying that the management has secured their lives fully and completely. The 38-year-old VIP-majorette Yessenov believes he will easily outdo the elder Nazarbayev and Yesimov.
The allure of Samruk-Kazyna under Akhmetzhan Yesimov! For instance, the holding issues shares, with the government being the sole shareholder. If Yesimov suddenly wants money, for example, to support ATFBank or other related structures, Samruk-Kazyna simply issues shares. These shares are bought by the government — no questions asked. At the end of September 2019, Akhmetzhan Yesimov issued a new batch of papers — and the government gave him 180 million dollars. The grounds for issuing shares? None whatsoever! Samruk-Kazyna simply prints new ones, and the government buys them — in dollars, by the way. A unique situation in its own right.
As the sole founder of Samruk-Kazyna, the government of Kazakhstan, subordinate to the elected president of the country… has an advisory voice in its own holding. Thus, against the backdrop of a clearly deteriorating economic situation in the country and the need to support the population and existing enterprises, Tokayev advised Samruk-Kazyna to pay dividends in 100% volume.
“I believe that national companies should make dividend payments to the state for the past year amounting to up to 100 percent of net income,” the nationally elected president suggested softly, expressing the will of the people who elected him.
What did Akhmetzhan Yesimov do? To put it politely, he said: here, boy, there’s 50% for you. Exactly so, judging by the fact that Kazatomprom decided to pay only half. This is a lot, given that dividends are usually only a fifth, while the rest… are credited to a special account, from which they probably disappear, turning into assets of Yessenov’s ATFBank.
It is even unclear where Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nephew gets such monstrous greed from. After all, he can pretend to pay dividends while printing shares again and selling them to the state again, and these accidental capitals can be spun through his son-in-law Galimzhan Yessenov’s ATFBank. ATFBank will increase its metrics, avoiding national bank sanctions due to such an infusion, and use temporarily free money to issue loans with a decent leverage. When, due to a crisis of non-payments, people stop repaying the loans — Yessenov will throw up his hands and request help for ATFBank from the state. Akhmetzhan Yesimov will forget that the money vanished somewhere because they disappeared with a good person.
140 billion tenge is constantly rotating in a relative’s bank, even though under the government-established regulations, ATFBank doesn’t even come close to meeting the suitability criteria for storing FNB Samruk-Kazyna’s money.
The results of the audit of Samruk-Kazyna by the accounts committee are also revealing. The government received a report which clearly stated that Samruk-Kazyna, under the command of Akhmetzhan Yesimov, inflates internal costs through tenders within its own structure. Inflates them boldly and multiple times, naturally finding ways to then funnel the “delta” out of the country to private accounts and offshore zones for “consultations,” “marketing,” and — especially trendy — “risk assessment.”
The tate received the report and could do nothing: in essence, Akhmetzhan Yesimov just sent the accounts committee to hell along with its conclusions, declaring that Samruk-Kazyna’s successes reach the skies, and the committee was slandering. And what did Tokayev do? Precisely… Nothing! Who is he in comparison to Akhmetzhan Yesimov with Galimzhan Yessenov?
And Kazakhstan will pay again for this whole schizophrenic ice ballet with a ball: it won’t lose anything from this. The spectacle is indeed phenomenal, Singapore such a Singapore….
WHAT WILL ATFBANK DO WITHOUT SAMRUK-KAZYNA?
Akhmetzhan Yesimov, Samruk-Kazyna
Akhmetzhan Yesimov, having grown fat over the prosperous years on national monopolies, wants at all costs to grab a few more pieces before it becomes obvious: the whole venture with the FNB has led only to the enrichment of the oligarchy and relatives. Including Yesimov’s son-in-law — Galimzhan Yessenov with his ATFBank.
Akhmetzhan Yesimov has been managing Samruk-Kazyna since the end of 2017. Exactly since then the special relations of the national welfare fund Samruk-Kazyna with ATF Bank have persisted. According to the FNB’s statute and common sense, national wealth cannot be held in a bank that doles out loans left and right, having a history of state rehabilitation and subsidization. However, in Kazakhstan — if something is not allowed, but there is a relative there, then it is allowed. This is exactly the situation between Samruk-Kazyna and ATFBank: the young banker Galimzhan Yessenov is married to the daughter of the seasoned Akhmetzhan Yesimov. To round out the picture of total permissiveness, let us remind the obvious: Yesimov is the nephew of the Leader of the Nation. Now it is clear who owns and how Yesimov manages Samruk-Kazyna.
Galimzhan Yessenov, ATFBank
It was previously reported by the Accounts Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan that things in Samruk-Kazyna are going brilliantly — only for the corrupt. The giant state holding, which was developed based on Singapore’s templates, turned out to be an ineffective idea in the conditions of Central Asia. And Galimzhan Yessenov profited greatly from it. Only he and his father-in-law Akhmetzhan Yesimov. Instead of simplifying the management of a vast number of national monopolies, Nursultan Nazarbayev ended up with a headache in the form of internal purchases made at vastly inflated prices. The fund itself keeps money in banks outside the country and contributes to the demand for foreign currency, and consequently to the fall of the tenge. Moreover, temporarily free funds are kept in Galimzhan Yessenov’s ATFBank, allowing the latter to inflate his assets and present beautiful reports to the National Bank without actually having the required financial indicators. It is known that last year Yesimov nourished his son-in-law with remains from the Samruk-Kazyna fund averaging 140 billion tenge. Yessenov used the money to conduct profitable but risky operations to stimulate retail lending. Not only Samruk-Kazyna indulges in this, but also, for example, the agricultural holding.
Kazakhstan has already experienced a banking crisis and seems to be heading for a new one. Undoubtedly, the whole system is destined for a gigantic shake-up and losses incompatible with life. Under these conditions, Samruk-Kazyna could be useful but turned out to be beneficial only to those who led the fund. The cream went to the top, while the roots — i.e., debts and the burden of supporting the national welfare fund itself — in the end, will fall upon the people of Kazakhstan. When this surfaces, however, it will turn out that Galimzhan Yessenov and Akhmetzhan Yesimov have long secured their welfare, ATFBank will again ask for state support and a new cycle of dangerous meaninglessness, into which the idea of creating a steppe Singapore has turned, will begin.
Pavel Raznokidis