OREANDA-NEWS. On 05 February 2009 was announced, that the general meeting of shareholders of JSC BTA Bank held today voted to raise the bank’s charter capital by issuing and floating authorized shares.

As a result of the issue, the numbers of authorized common and preferred shares will increase by 3,088,082 (three million, eighty-eight thousand and eighty-two) and 1,587,854 (one million, five hundred and eighty-seven thousand and eight hundred and fifty-four) shares, respectively. Thus, the total number of BTA shares outstanding will equal 13,146,561, with common and preferred shares numbering 11,458,707 and 1,687,854, respectively.

The vote signals shareholders’ intention to further strengthen the presence of Group BTA in financial markets in Kazakhstan and beyond, very much in line with the bank’s growth strategy, which demands that BTA has a capacity for making, when necessary, quick and effective capitalization moves. Extra capital so raised helps the bank boost the supply of credit for the real sector of the economy, provide funding for new programmes, maintain an adequate level of liquidity and quality of its loan portfolio and comply with FSA capital adequacy and provisioning requirements.

Also, the vote delivers approval for the December 2008 Memorandum of Understanding by JSC BTA Bank, the government, National Bank, Agency on Regulation and Supervision of Financial Market and Financial Organizations (FSA) and the Samruk-Kazyna National Welfare Fund.

In the meantime, negotiations between the government as represented by Samruk-Kazyna and BTA on an agreement whereby additional project financing for the real sector of the economy will be provided through BTA are nearing their conclusion.

As a financial institution that provides financing to over a third of all non-commodity businesses in Kazakhstan, BTA has developed a set of special measures to help make realization of Samruk-Kazyna projects more efficient.

On the repayments front, a total of US\\$1.2 billion in foreign debt repayment was made over the course of 2008 and, early in 2009, two-year Eurobonds worth US\\$250 million were retired, in all instances on schedule, which confirmed, once again, BTA’s status of a liquid and responsible financial institution.