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Economy

Azerbaijan's state bank pays $140 million for 51% of Davr Bank, 40% above the price it announced in May

The International Bank of Azerbaijan bought 51% of Tashkent's Davr Bank on Thursday in 6 trades on the Tashkent stock exchange for 1.646 trillion soums, $139.5 million at Gazeta.uz's conversion. In May the price was given as more than $100 million. Neither report explains the difference.

Azerbaijan's state bank pays $140 million for 51% of Davr Bank, 40% above the price it announced in May

The trades went through the Republican Stock Exchange in Tashkent under the ticker DRBK: 51 million ordinary shares at 32,281.28 soums each, Spot.uz reported at 15:05 Tashkent time. The sellers were the bank's two largest shareholders, Lutfulla Ubayev, chairman of the supervisory board, with 46.9%, and Makhfuza Ubayeva with 13.5%.

At the deal price the whole bank is worth 3.23 trillion soums, $273.6 million, Gazeta.uz calculated. Davr Bank was registered in September 2001; its assets stood at 13.2 trillion soums on 1 July, up 18.9% in a year, and its 2025 net profit was 631.5 billion soums, up 62%.

The buyer is a large Azerbaijani state bank, known by its Azerbaijani initials ABB. The deal was announced on 8 May at more than $100 million; Davr's shareholders approved talks on 15 June; and on 23 August, the day the two countries' supreme intergovernmental council sat in Tashkent, Ilham Aliyev said a leading Azerbaijani bank had entered the Uzbek market and thanked the central bank and the government for a comfortable investment environment. The trades came 18 days later.

Neither report explains the difference. Spot.uz says only that the sum exceeds the May figure; Gazeta.uz gives the arithmetic and not the reason. Whether the $100 million was a floor, a first tranche or a pre-valuation figure is not stated by either bank.

At the deal price the whole bank is worth 3.23 trillion soums, $273.6 million, Gazeta.uz calculated.

It is the first purchase of an Uzbek bank by an Azerbaijani one that the desk has on record, and it passes CAW's intra-regional test on its own: no Russian and no Western actor in the transaction, the money crossing the Caspian from a state bank in Baku to two shareholders in Tashkent. What ABB intends to do with a mid-sized Uzbek bank, and who holds the remaining 49%, the reports do not say.

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