By Ivan Anderzhanov in Moscow.
Kazakhstan’s largest bank BTA has hired investment bank Lazard to replace Goldman Sachs as an adviser on the restructuring of its $15bn debt.
Lazard, which been advising Kazakhstan’s Alliance Bank joins UBS on the advisory team following Goldman’s decision to step down from its role less than two weeks ago.
BTA has been in negotiations with creditors since April after halting debt repayments. It has said a failure to restructure debt could lead to its bankruptcy.
Alliance Bank last week said it reached an agreement for the restructuring with a group of nine banks. Creditors face losses of as much as 80% on $4.2bn of debt in the first restructuring deal by Kazakhstan’s defaulted lenders.
