Freedom Holding Corp., a financial firm headquartered in Kazakhstan with operations across Asia and Europe, is bolstering its family office services as part of its expanding U.S. presence.
Freedom Holding has a $5 billion market capitalization and is listed on the Nasdaq (FRHC). The company’s New York-based investment banking subsidiary, Freedom Capital Markets, hosted its NYC Family Office Summit on April 8 at the Pillsbury Law offices in Manhattan and plans to host about five content and networking events for family offices throughout the year.
“In the U.S., we purposely stood up a family office practice within the broker deal here,” Freedom Capital Markets President and CEO Robert Wotczak told Crain Currency. “As family office generations pass through and go to the next gen, a lot of them are looking at different alternative investment opportunities, philanthropic opportunities, impact opportunities. And I think with us on the capital markets side, our banking side, we’re trying to match those two and marry them together in both ways.”
In January 2023, Freedom Capital Markets hired family office events and networking veteran Marcia Nelson as its managing director.
“Just by establishing those relationships [at our family office events] they’re outstanding opportunities for us when we have deals to potentially show to them,” Wotczak said. “It’s been incredibly successful so far. Foundationally, we love where this part of our business is going within the U.S. strategy, and we will definitely continue to focus on that as part of our overall distribution model in the United States.”
Freedom Holding CEO Timur Turlov, a billionaire who renounced his Russian citizenship in June 2022, told reporters at a media dinner in New York this month that he “expects to think about” acquiring a commercial bank in the United States.