Two Uzbekistani London debuts delayed to next year
The eagerly anticipated London listings of two Uzbekistani state-owned companies have been pushed back to 2027, the country’s deputy prime minister has said, despite the successful public debut of its national investment fund earlier this year.
Jamshid Kuchkarov told an event in Tashkent that planned IPOs of Uzbekistan Airways and telecom giant Uzbektelecom will no longer happen this year amid a government-led effort to get the two firms ship-shape for life as public companies.
The pair had been viewed as prime contenders to help plug a barren run of listings in the capital this year, after the successful debut from the Central Asian country’s strategic investment fund.
Uzbekistan’s National Investment Fund (Uznif) raised some $692m on the London and Tashkent stock exchanges when it dual-listed in May. Shares in the fund, which is managed by Franklin Templeton and invests in a range of the country’s state-owned companies, are now a fifth higher than their IPO price, bucking the well-documented difficulties faced by the majority of new entrants onto London’s bourse.
But there have been just two other debutants in the UK capital this year – Meridian Mining and Iforex – which raised a combined £32m. Other major contenders for 2026 – including the Uzbekistani gold miner Navoi, Norwegian software giant Visma and Loveholidays – have all either paused or pushed their plans for a listing back to 2027, adding to concerns about the overall health of London’s stock market.
Uzbekistan prepares for slew of IPOs
Speaking at a seminar in the Uzbekistani capital, Kuchkarov, who also serves as the country’s finance minister, said its airline and telecom IPOs would also not happen until “next year” due to the reform programme his government is overseeing with Franklin Templeton.
“We talk about railways, we need to reform the railway companies, transform them, and we are doing exactly that,” he said. “If we talk about digital connectivity, we need a strong telecommunications company, and we must transform it. The same applies to aviation: we need to reform our airlines.”
The debuts are expected to be the precursors for a wave of London IPOs emerging from Uzbekistan, which is undergoing a historic privatisation drive under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The country, which had been one of the most protectionist in the world before Mirziyoyev’s 2016 election victory, expects to orchestrate as many as six IPOs in a bid to open Tashkent up to international capital.
Uzbekistan Airways is expected to fetch a valuation of more than $2bn (£1.5bn) at its IPO next year, while the national telecom operator is currently valued at roughly $400m.