【New Stock IPO】Kazakhstan National Railway files for listing, last year's profit more than doubled

Kazakhstan's national transport and logistics operator, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, has submitted a listing application to the Stock Exchange, with CICC acting as the sole sponsor.

According to the preliminary prospectus, the company is one of the important land transport corridors connecting Kazakhstan's production centers with China, Central Asia, Russia, the Caspian region, and Europe. It covers all 17 regions of Kazakhstan, with a railway network spanning approximately 16k kilometers, ranking third among CIS and Baltic countries with a track gauge of 1,520 millimeters.

The company is wholly owned by Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna. In 2025, its freight turnover reached 288.8 billion ton-kilometers, an increase of 10.36% year-on-year.

For the year ended December 31, 2025, the full-year profit was 16k tenge, a year-on-year increase of 1.14 times; revenue was 2.75 trillion tenge, up 27.41% year-on-year. Among this, freight revenue increased by 31.33% year-on-year to 2.46 trillion tenge, accounting for 89.3% of total comprehensive income and other income; passenger revenue increased by 16.94% year-on-year to 129.25 billion tenge, accounting for approximately 4.7% of revenue. The gross profit margin was 30.2%, an increase of 5.1 percentage points year-on-year.

The proceeds from this fundraising will be used for railway digital infrastructure construction; the construction of new railway lines; repaying the principal and accrued interest of certain interest-bearing borrowings of the group; and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Visited Hong Kong in May for a closed-door meeting with the HKEX team, laying the groundwork for the listing

It is worth noting that Nurlan Zhakupov, CEO of Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, visited Hong Kong in May and met with the Hong Kong Exchange (00388) team, including HKEX CEO Bonnie Chan, Head of Global Listing Services Ringo Chiu, and Head of Global Listing Services (Asia) Zhang Shuming. During the meeting, both parties clearly designated HKEX as one of the potential international listing venues for Kazakhstan's national railway (KAZAKHSTAN TEMIR ZHOLY JSC, KTZ) for its future initial public offering (IPO).

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