Timur Turlov: “We Serve More Than 5 Million Clients Within the Freedom Holding Corp. Ecosystem”

EUToday CorrespondentsApril 22, 20240168 views

Timur Turlov, CEO and founder of Freedom Holding Corp., spoke at the XIV LD Micro Invitational conference in New York last week where he noted the company’s current results and discussed the company’s business model including Freedom’s diversified ecosystem of financial and ancillary services.

Over the past number of years, Freedom Holding Corp. has acquired several companies in Kazakhstan, where they are headquartered, as well as in the United States.

But this, in itself, does not make a company successful.

According to Turlov, the key to a successful acquisition is in preserving the existing management team and creating an environment for the harmonious integration of these teams with Freedom as the new owner.

“Over the past 5 years, we have acquired several startups in our country, provided them with resources for growth, and assisted them on their trajectory of success.

“This is the ideal picture of a successful integration and I am very proud that we found a way to collaborate with the founders of these startups who, as subsidiaries, became part of our Freedom Holding Corp. family,” Turlov said.

As a result of an updated business model aimed at partnership, Freedom Holding Corp. significantly changed the revenue structure. Three years later, the company, whose core business was retail stock brokerage, is successfully diversifying its revenue streams and now makes less than half its revenue from the brokerage business.

“We have more than five million customers in our ecosystem of services which include a commercial bank, insurance, and in some lifestyle e-commerce services,” stated Turlov.

According to him, Kazakhstan is an excellent platform for the continued development of service offerings and the expansion of its digital business lines.

Over the course of several years, his company has invested more than $100 million in the development of the ecosystem of services, creating an insurance company, acquiring a travel booking service, and issuing bonds to create its own telecom company.

Freedom Holding also acquired LD Micro a US based micro and small-cap investor conference organization and index.

Speaking about the company’s plans, Timur Turlov expressed hope that Freedom Holding Corp. would one day replicate the success it is having in the delivery of digital products and services in Kazakhstan, in other markets such as the US and Europe.

According to Turlov, in the European Union, FRHC currently serves about 250,000 clients on its Tradernet platform, which provides access to trading on EU and US exchanges. However, for a more global expansion of Freedom Holding, much more time and effort is required.

“We believe that our products and services have the potential for broad application across several larger markets and we are looking forward to exploring these opportunities.

“This will take time and effort as each market as each market is regulated in differently, but it is an exciting prospect nevertheless and undertaking this type of exploration is in keeping with how we constantly look to develop and expand our business,” Turlov concluded.