The building of the head office of Tojiksodirotbonk (TSB) and Tajikistan Hotel have been put up for sale.

Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, says the starting price for the building of the TSB head office is 125,265,630 somonis (equivalent to about 12 million U.S. dollars) and the starting price for Tajikistan Hotel is 225,285,624 somonis (equivalent to about 25 million U.S. dollars).

Radio Ozodi says the sale of these facilities was announced on May 25.   

The Sales Organization Department of the State Committee on Investment and State-run Property Management (GosKomInvest) is reportedly responsible for organization of the auction.

Meanwhile, Asia-Plus failed to find any information about the auction for the mentioned facilities on official websites of GosKomInvest and its subordinate institutions. 

GosKomInvest representatives did not say where the announcement of the auction was published. 

Recall, TSB and three other banks have been experiencing financial problems since the beginning of 2016, and therefore failed to fully meet their obligations to customers.

In 2017, the government provided financial assistance to these banks.  Tojiksodirotbonk received a total of 2 billion 250 million somonis.

Tajik central bank revoked TSB’s operating licenses on May 21, 2021.  The country’s financial regulator said in a statement on May 21 that TSB has been wound down because restructuring and recapitalization efforts did nothing to improve its financial situation.

The National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) says that according to the preliminary data as of April 30, 2021, the balance sheet commitments of TSB for the same period have amounted to 1.263.7 billion somonis, while total assets (gross) of the bank have reportedly been estimated at 3.922.2 billion somonis. 

TSB was established in December 1990 as the Tajik branch of the Vnesh Econom Bank of the former Soviet Union, and it initially specialized in trade and import-export banking.  Later this branch was reorganized into a Joint-Stock Commercial Bank “Tajikvnesheconombank”. In June 1999 the bank was renamed and registered as Tojiksodirotbonk or TSB.

Headquartered in Dushanbe, TSB has 11 branches in the main cities of Tajikistan and covers all regions of the country.      

The government now owns 85.9 percent of the shares in Tojiksodirotbonk.  Before that, 58.89 percent of TSB’s shares had been owned by Closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC) Evraziya (Eurasia), 11.65 percent by Melodiyon LTD, 10.99 percent by Ehson LTD, 7.38 percent by Media Plyus (Plus) LTD and 1.11 percent by Vostok LTD.

As of May 1, 2018, assets on TSB’s books reportedly include the bank headquarters in Dushanbe, 43 branches across the country, Closed Joint Stock Company (CJSC) Dushanbe Mall (one of Tajikistan’s largest shopping malls, which is home to the country's first ever hypermarket to be part of the French Auchan chain), Tajikistan Hotel in Dushanbe, eight nine-story apartment buildings in Danghara district (Khatlon province), spinning mills in Danghara and Farkhor districts (Khatlon province), cotton ginneries in Khatlon province, and auto-repair enterprise.