Samruk-Kazyna to halve subsidiaries, establish minimum profit standard
ASTANA. Oct 6 (Interfax) - Samruk-Kazyna State Wealth Fund plans to halve the number of companies in its portfolio and establish a minimum profit standard for them, Samruk-Kazyna CEO Umirzak Shukeyev said in Astana on Monday.
"Within the transformation program we aim to reduce the number of companies from 600 to 300 over the next three years and lessen hierarchical management levels from 9 to 4. A lower limit of profit will be set for all subsidiaries, who will be required to find private companies as partners and transfer new technologies to the marketplace," Shukeyev said at the transformation forum.
He noted that in the previous period Samruk-Kazyna managed to reduce operating costs by 128 billion tenge by introducing a single treasury function, e-procurement and disposing of non-core assets.
"First of all, the fund should focus on creating new value. The key target is to generate a positive economic profit in 2020 that will provide an additional contribution of 2 trillion tenge or $11 billion to the GDP," he said.
"Samruk-Kazyna will determine the optimal portfolio structure through restructuring, privatization, mergers and acquisitions, disposing of inefficient assets and creating new businesses in energy, metallurgy, chemical industry, tourism and the green industry," Shukeyev said.
A meeting of the council for modernization and transformation took place in early September at KazMunaiGas, which was attended by representatives from JSC Samruk-Kazyna - its sole shareholder, and by members of the company's board and board of directors. The meeting examined the company draft transformation program submitted by a working group, according to a statement. The program was ultimately approved.
KazMunaiGas' CEO Sauat Mynbayev outlined key aspects of the transformation program - exploration , production, processing, overseas assets management and corporate center.
Pilot operations for the transformation have already begun in several areas in the fund and at three companies - Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, KazMunaiGas and Kazpost.
The exchange rate on October 6 was 181.9 tenge/$1.