Ringing the Bell: How Kazakhstan Builds Global Market Presence
The Bell and the Benchmark — How Kazakhstan Advances When Our Companies List on Nasdaq, LSE, and KASE.
I have had the opportunity to ring the bell on several international stock exchanges, and, truly, it is a unique feeling that does not fade easily. Over 25 years of professional career, operating in financial markets around the world, I have taken companies public, worked inside them, and shown that markets remain one of the most effective (and most exciting) ways to create value and growth.
Last year, we rang the bell at Nasdaq in New York when Oxus, our first Central Asian SPAC, finally merged with Borealis Foods, a North American company doing important work to innovate within the food industry.
As I once read, “a bell is a signal, way more than a trophy.” In the stock market, as in boxing, the bells mark the start of the action. Same as in the stock market. Just as in the stock market, the bell marks that work is about to start. You know that I am a keen supporter of the boxing world, and a boxer myself, and believe me when I tell you that the feeling is somewhat similar.
For three decades, Kazakhstan companies, banks, funds, and other financial market actors have worked with American and British institutions to make our issuers better known, compared, and financed, and to communicate in the language the markets speak. I live the useful pressure that markets impose and the way timelines turn into commitments. For everyone.
I began my stock-market career when we took Fincraft public on Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, when it was still called SAT & Co., and where we continue to trade. I have always believed that a national company should have its anchor at home, even if it then goes on to explore the world successfully.
We built at home on KASE to establish disclosure, a domestic base, and liquidity, and then we took Central Asia Metals public, which at the time was one of the major successes on the London Stock Exchange. Later, I was involved with many other listed companies, including Petropavlovsk in London, or Mullen Automotive, again on Nasdaq.
In the life of a professional investor, market life is fluid, and positions evolve. At the end of the day, markets reward facts and certainly not slogans, as I believe that market disclosure procedures remain the best way to let your story reach the investment community.
It is through life in the markets (and many Kazakh companies have gone public in London and New York, many successfully) that our nation’s assets have become even more valuable and, above all, better known.
The bell we rang for Borealis reminded me why this work matters, and there are many more to come. Time and again, we have proved that a global, LSE or Nasdaq-listed company can be supported from Kazakhstan, and that deals can originate in Almaty.
