Azerbaijan deceives the Kazakhstani pensioners,

Resonant scandal around the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) caused a financial "earthquake" in Kazakhstan. One of the IBA's foreign creditors is the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (ENPF) of this country, which invested 71.6 billion tenge or 250 million dollars in the IBA. Therefore, questions about the future of the pension savings of Kazakhstanis, voiced in these days in Astana, are very relevant.

It is not coincidence that the Minister of Labor and Social Protection Tamara Duisenova was recently summoned to the government of the country to coordinate actions in this difficult situation, and to calm the insured persons and local financial institutions, local media write. According to the head of the department, the state guarantees the safety of mandatory pension contributions to the EPPF in the amount of actually paid mandatory contributions taking into account the level of inflation at the time the beneficiary acquires the right to pension payments.

However, the former chairman of the Association of Accumulative Pension Funds of Kazakhstan, Aidar Alibayev, in his assessments of the current situation is more direct and dispensed with diplomatic expressions.

"Azerbaijan is a developing country with a rather high level of corruption, which is much more dependent on oil than even Kazakhstan. We have a lot of oil besides oil, but they only have fruit. The level of management efficiency there is very low. Much is held by the support of the Turks. Investing a quarter of a million dollars into an Azerbaijani bank was a dangerous enterprise, especially in a country with high risks, "Alibayev said.

Meanwhile, in London, where negotiations are taking place on the IBA debt restructuring plan of $ 3.3 billion, real passions are boiling. Lenders who are offered to exchange bonds with a 20% discount from face value are taking steps to block the proposed scheme for meeting debt obligations in the long term. They received a warning that the bank may be closed if they oppose this plan.

"Lenders are very unhappy with writing off part of the debt," said Lutz Remeier, asset manager for approximately $ 2.2 billion, including IBA bonds, at Landesbank Berlin Investment and voted against the plan. This proposal demonstrates the unwillingness of the state to pay, with all the possibilities to pay. This will lead to an increase in the cost of long-term financing for Azerbaijan "(Bloomberg).

The IBA included in the list of senior debt subject to restructuring, deposits of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan for $1 billion. SOFAZ, like the bank itself, is controlled by the state, including its deposits in the restructuring program will provide the lending institution with almost a third of the votes necessary for the proposed plan to become mandatory even before negotiations with investors begin.

Minister of Finance Samir Sharifov said that creditors can regard the plan as a partial debt write-off, however, it is the only available offer.

Dollar bonds of IBA for $500 million with maturity in 2019 fell to 82.24 cents per dollar, or more than 18 cents from May 11, on the eve of announcement of a restructuring plan. During the presentation on Tuesday, the paper fell by about 1 cent.

The restoration of oil prices this year has not brought much relief to Azerbaijan, the third largest producer of this raw material in the former USSR, which last year battled for its currency, having already experienced two devaluations in 2015. The IBA unexpectedly defaulted this month, having missed the May 10 payment on the subordinated loan for $100 million and launching the restructuring process.

"The likelihood that we will have to consider the write-off is disappointing - I did not expect this," said Greg Saychin, director of investment in emerging-market bonds at Allianz Global Investors in London, which manages assets of 480 billion euros ($ 511 billion), including Bonds of IBA. For reputational reasons, the government should not have incurred such losses on debt holders. It will cost high the Bank to offer a higher market premium, taking into account that they could deal with all this other way."