Kazphosphate LLP, the operational heart of the Kazakhmys group's phosphorus business, lost almost all of its equity over three years: from KZT 63.7 billion to KZT 2.5 billion. FBRK studied the company's financial statements for 2023–2025 and found that the debt taken on when the asset was purchased back in 2021 has not gone away - it is merely being redistributed among the group's related structures. And in 2025, the company transferred goods worth almost KZT 14 billion to its affiliated Novodzhambul Phosphorus Plant LLP (NDFZ) without payment.
WHAT THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS SHOW
Not long ago, FBRK examined how the stake in Kazphosphate LLP was sold, and how the KAZ Chemicals holding company ended up owing twice its own assets. Having analysed the separate and consolidated financial statements of Kazphosphate LLP itself for 2023–2025, we found that the group's financial problems did not remain in the past of the selling holding company - they have been passed on to the enterprise that is formally considered the operational core of the phosphorus business.
Kazphosphate's financial statements were certified for three consecutive years by the auditor Ernst & Young, and each time - without qualification. But behind the auditor's impeccable opinion lies alarming dynamics: the net loss for 2023 amounted to KZT 8.9 billion against a profit of KZT 33.8 billion a year earlier. In 2024, the loss grew to KZT 33.2 billion, and in 2025 it amounted to KZT 14.6 billion. Three consecutive years in the red. As a result, the company's equity collapsed from KZT 63.7 billion at the end of 2023 to KZT 26 billion in 2024 and KZT 2.5 billion at the end of 2025 - that is, by almost 96% in two years, and retained earnings turned into an accumulated deficit for the first time (-KZT 10.7 billion).
At the same time, debt was growing. Loans due for repayment rose from around KZT 94 billion in 2023 to KZT 139.4 billion in 2024 and KZT 156.4 billion in 2025. Back in 2023, the company breached a restrictive covenant on a loan from Narodny Bank, as a result of which all long-term debt was recognised as short-term, and the working capital deficit amounted to KZT 46.2 billion. A similar picture persisted in 2024 (KZT 42.6 billion) and in 2025 (KZT 27.3 billion). As at 31 December 2025, KZT 62.6 billion of debt (including interest) is recorded as repayable "on demand" - meaning creditors are formally entitled to demand repayment at any moment.
For all three years, the going concern assumption rested not on operating results but on informal letters. In May 2024 and April 2026, the parent company's participants merely expressed an intention to provide funds if necessary, after which the company did indeed receive loans from a related party (almost KZT 20 billion in January–April 2024) and from RBK Bank JSC (KZT 6.5 billion in early 2026).
Moreover, despite the losses, the company continued to pay dividends: KZT 16.3 billion in 2022, KZT 11 billion (accrued) in 2023, KZT 5.3 billion in 2024. Payments ceased only in 2025 - the very year when the company's equity came close to being wiped out. However, in 2025 another transaction appeared: on the orders of its parent company, Kazphosphate gratuitously, that is without payment, transferred finished goods and work in progress worth KZT 13.6 billion to the related company NDFZ LLP - this amount was written off directly against equity, bypassing the income statement, and the financial statements do not disclose the economic rationale for the transaction.
The quality of related-party receivables is also concerning. They grew to KZT 40 billion, of which KZT 15.5 billion has already been provisioned as expected losses, including the almost fully (99%) provisioned receivable from its own subsidiary, KazChemicals Trading House LLP, the investment in which (KZT 7.1 billion, purchased from KAZ Chemicals in December 2022) was written off entirely as early as 2023. Investments in the joint venture GPK Kazphosphate LLP and in the associate company Central Asia Fertilizers LLC JV are also impaired or loss-making.
WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE COMPANY ITSELF
In 2021, the Kazakhmys group bought Kazphosphate from Galimzhan Yesenov and Aizhan Yesim for $611.2 million, of which 97% ($592.9 million) was a loan from Narodny Bank. The new owner was Kaz Chemicals LLP.
In 2022–2023, the business was split. The production of yellow phosphorus was spun off into a separate NDFZ LLP, while the mineral fertiliser plant remained in Kazphosphate. According to the audited financial statements, this was legally formalised in January–May 2023. Along with the business, which a year earlier had generated KZT 150.8 billion in revenue and KZT 30.4 billion in profit, Kazphosphate transferred KZT 52.6 billion in debt to NDFZ. In autumn 2023, 40% of Kazphosphate was bought by KP Fertilizers Ltd, registered at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC); it had previously been exited by former co-owner Dmitry Strezhnev, who was under UK sanctions, and the remaining stake of Kaz Chemicals was sold, with the bank debt of $314 million transferred to the buyer.
The resulting ownership structure is KP Fertilizers Ltd (50%), Kazakhmys Resources B.V. (40%) and brothers Nurzhan and Nurkhan Nurianov - sons of former Mazhilis speaker Nurlan Nigmatulin (5% each) - all through CAF Holding Ltd. The selling holding company itself, as FBRK has already written, ended 2024 with an accumulated loss of KZT 116.6 billion and negative equity.
Incidentally, after the Nurianov brothers became co-owners of the company, Kaz Chemicals LLP featured in a whole series of high-profile stories. In July 2022, at the plant in Taraz, an accident occurred involving exceedances of fluoride compound emission limits. The media also reported a series of fatal incidents at the enterprise during that period. In the same year, the antitrust authority referred materials to law enforcement agencies concerning fertiliser price inflation, in which the Nurianov brothers were named as beneficiaries.
At the same time, Nurlan and his brother Yerlan Nigmatulin were named as suspects in a case concerning alleged raiding against businessman Sultanbekov. The fate of these cases varies. The Prosecutor General's Office previously stated that there were no criminal cases against the former speaker; the case against Nurkhan Nurianov was discontinued in September 2025, while an international letter of request concerning Nurzhan Nurianov was sent in May 2025.
WHAT THIS MEANS
The debt taken on in 2021 to buy Kazphosphate has not disappeared - it has merely been redistributed several times among related structures along with the business itself. First, the profitable production was moved into NDFZ, leaving Kazphosphate with a less marginal asset and part of the obligations. Then the new owners acquired a company that immediately began losing equity at the same rate as the selling holding company. The dividends that continued to be accrued during loss-making years drained real money out of the company at a time when operating cash flow was negative. And the gratuitous transfer of goods to NDFZ in 2025, after Kazphosphate's equity had shrunk to a symbolic KZT 2.5 billion, shows that the ties between the group's formally separated structures have not gone anywhere: the decision to transfer was taken by Kazphosphate's own parent company.
At the same time, it is worth acknowledging that the operational indicators for 2025 look encouraging - revenue grew by 80%, to KZT 217.9 billion, and the operating result became positive for the first time in three years (KZT 11.57 billion). Admittedly, this profit was almost entirely consumed by finance costs (KZT 14.64 billion) and a loss from exchange rate differences (KZT 5 billion) - a direct consequence of the foreign currency loan taken out back in 2021. Kazphosphate's problem, judging by the figures, is not the phosphorus business itself, but the structure of its financing.
