Kaspi.kz’s debut: caution seen as lukewarm market introduction.

Kaspi.kz, a financial joint stock company, made its Nasdaq debut on Friday, January 19, 2024. The company’s shares topped the IPO price with 0.5%, giving it a value of $17.51 billion. On the London Stock Exchange, where the company already trades, it has a value of over $19 billion. Despite the company’s debut, it did not draw the anticipated attention from investors.

On Thursday, January 18, 2024, a day before Kaspi.kz went public, investors increased their offering to 11.3 million shares instead of the earlier benchmark of 9 million shares. The inflated IPO raked in $1 billion for investors, but none of these gains went into the company itself.

Analysts attribute the lukewarm market debut of Kaspi.kz to investor caution, influenced by the slow US IPO action of the past two years. The performance of Kaspi.kz’s IPO raises questions about the performance of upcoming startup IPOs and the potential impact of the US Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting decisions.

Kaspi.kz operates through three segments – payments, marketplace, and fintech. The diversification of its operations makes tangible market evaluations difficult for investors.