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

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the national transport and logistics operator of Kazakhstan, has submitted a listing application to the Stock Exchange, with CICC 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 Sea region, and Europe. It covers all 17 regions of Kazakhstan, and its railway stretches for about 16,000 kilometers. Among CIS and Baltic states with a track gauge of 1,520 mm, it ranks third.

The company is wholly owned by Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund. In 2025, freight turnover was 288.8 billion tonne-kilometers, up 10.36% year-on-year.

As of the end of December 2025, full-year profit was 343.646 billion tenge, up 1.14 times year-on-year; revenue was 2.75 trillion tenge, up 27.41% year-on-year. Of this, freight revenue increased 31.33% year-on-year to 2.46 trillion tenge, accounting for 89.3% of total comprehensive income and other gains; passenger revenue increased 16.94% year-on-year to 129.25 billion tenge, with its revenue share at about 4.7%. The gross profit margin was 30.2%, up 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 on part of the group’s interest-bearing borrowings; and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Private meeting in Hong Kong in May to lay groundwork for listing early

Of note, Nurlan Zhakupov, CEO of Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, had already met with the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (00388) team during his visit to Hong Kong in May. The meeting included Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Chen Yiting, the head of the Global Listing Services Department Xu Jingwei, the Asia head of the Global Listing Services Department Zhang Shuming, and others. During the discussions, both sides explicitly identified the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong as one of the potential international listing venues for the company’s future IPO of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC (KAZAKHSTAN TEMIR ZHOLY JSC, KTZ).

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