PPF Group CEO acquires remaining 25% stake in Kazakhstan's Home Credit Bank from Russia's HCF Bank

ALMATY. Dec 28 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan's Home Credit Bank has closed a deal that resulted in PPF Group CEO Jiri Schmeits becoming the bank's majority shareholder after acquiring a 25% stake in the bank previously owned by Russia's Home Credit and Finance Bank and increasing his holding to 34.7%, the bank's press office said in a statement.

The increase in the stake owned by Schmeits was approved by Kazakhstan's agency for the regulation and development of the financial market. Now there are no Russian nationals among the shareholders of Home Credit Bank.

Russia's Home Credit and Finance Bank sold a 75% stake in its Kazakhstan's subsidiary Home Credit Bank to the top management of the financial group PPF led by Jiri Schmeits and held 25% of shares.

PPF Group and Home Credit in May this year entered into an agreement on selling their banking assets and subsidiaries in Russia to a group of Russian individual investors led by the former head of the RTS, Ivan Tyryshkin, the Czech group said in a statement. As part of the deal Home Credit Bank, then subsidiary of the Russian HCF bank, was to be sold to shareholders and several senior managers of PPF and Home Credit.

Home Credit Bank, established in 2005, specializes in retail lending, providing loans in tenge and to individuals only.

Home Credit Bank JSC was ranked 14th by assets among the 21 banks operating in Kazakhstan as at October 1, 2022, according to the country's National Bank.