ASTANA, May 23. /Dunyo IA/. Trading of shares of the National Investment Fund of Uzbekistan (UzNIF) took place on the London and Tashkent Stock Exchanges, reports Dunyo IA correspondent, citing with the Kazakh online publication “exclusive.kz”.

During the IPO, the country's government raised 603.6 million US dollars by selling about a third of the fund's equity capital. Following the placement, UzNIF's market valuation stood at 1.95 billion dollars.

Demand from international investors exceeded supply by more than four times, with the total volume of bids approaching 3 billion dollars. Already on the first day of trading in London, the fund's depository receipts rose by 12.1%, reaching 28.03 dollars against an initial offering price of 25 dollars per share.

The anchor investors included BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Redwheel, and the Allan & Gill Gray Foundation. The fund consolidates stakes in 13 of Uzbekistan's largest state-owned enterprises, including Uzbekistan Airways, “Uzbektelecom”, “Uzbekhydroenergo”, the Republican Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange and “Uzpromstroybank”.

Management of the fund has been transferred to a structure of Franklin Templeton, which provides for the introduction of international standards of corporate governance and transparency. The raised funds will be directed to the state budget, and in the future, the authorities plan to bring companies from the UzNIF portfolio to independent IPOs.