SPB Exchange to surrender stake in Kazakhstan's ITS exchange after coming under U.S. sanctions

ASTANA. Nov 3 (Interfax) - The SPB Exchange , which is a shareholder of Kazakhstan's ITS stock exchange, will surrender its stake due to sanctions imposed against the Russian exchange, the ITS press service said in a statement.

"The potential introduction of restrictive measures against SPB Exchange was taken into account, so appropriate measures were envisaged. The ITS charter describes the procedure of actions of the parties in case of such an event. The shareholder subject to sanctions withdraws from the capital of the ITS," the statement said.

Interfax has sent an inquiry to the SPB Exchange.

ITS is a new stock exchange in Kazakhstan, which began trading in June of this year. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). According to the IFCA Financial Services Regulatory Committee, SPB Exchange is a shareholder of ITS.

According to Forbes Kazakhstan, SPB Exchange owns 10% minus one share of ITS.

ITS uses the settlement and clearing infrastructure of SPB Bank (a settlement depository of SPB Exchange), but plans to create its own settlement and clearing infrastructure within a year. The platform does not work with Russian brokers and securities.

The day before, OFAC (the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury responsible for sanctions enforcement) added SPB Exchange to its sanctions list.