← All companies ← KRNT Manual KT → ← KRKR Commercial Services & Supplies LQDT →
KSPI, Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz
Kaspi.kz runs a consumer "super-app" in Kazakhstan that bundles three businesses on one account: a payments network that moves money between people and merchants, an online marketplace that connects shoppers with sellers, and a fintech arm that takes deposits and lends to individuals. It earns money from payment and transaction fees, from merchant commissions on the marketplace, and from the spread on consumer loans funded largely by customer deposits. The same customer who pays a bill, shops, and borrows does all of it inside one app, so the three pieces feed each other.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- The question is whether owning the everyday account for a whole country is a real franchise or just a lead that competitors and regulators can erode. The tests to watch: whether daily payments and the marketplace create switching costs strong enough to keep deposits cheap and lending profitable without paying to acquire customers; whether the bundle holds its grip as rivals attack each leg; and whether a lender funded by customer deposits — overseen by the national bank, which can dial up capital buffers against loans to individuals — stays sound when household credit turns down. The bad case is a consumer-credit book that sours in a downturn while the deposit base proves less loyal than the deposit share suggests; the figures for margins and the deposit mix are in the record below.
Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2021–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMDec 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||
| KZT 884.8B | KZT 1.27T | KZT 1.91T | KZT 2.53T | KZT 4.05T | KZT 4.05T | RevenueRevenue |
| 94% | 93% | 91% | 88% | 71% | 71% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| KZT 697.0B | KZT 995.4B | KZT 1.49T | KZT 1.88T | KZT 2.16T | KZT 2.16T | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 78.8% | 78.3% | 78.0% | 74.3% | 53.5% | 53.5% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| KZT 431.9B | KZT 585.0B | KZT 841.4B | KZT 1.04T | KZT 1.07T | KZT 1.07T | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 18% | 18% | 17% | 18% | 20% | 20% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||
| KZT 70.4B | KZT 1.02T | KZT 1.11T | KZT 581.9B | KZT 673.6B | KZT 673.6B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| KZT 12.1B | KZT 16.8B | KZT 25.6B | KZT 28.8B | KZT 78.3B | KZT 78.3B | DepreciationDeprec. |
| (KZT 373.6B) | KZT 419.2B | KZT 239.2B | (KZT 486.7B) | (KZT 477.8B) | (KZT 477.8B) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| KZT 24.9B | KZT 59.5B | KZT 50.3B | KZT 95.7B | KZT 182.5B | KZT 182.5B | CapexCapex |
| 2.8% | 4.7% | 2.6% | 3.8% | 4.5% | 4.5% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| KZT 58.3B | KZT 1.00T | KZT 1.08T | KZT 553.1B | KZT 595.4B | KZT 595.4B | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 6.6% | 79.0% | 56.5% | 21.8% | 14.7% | 14.7% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| KZT 45.5B | KZT 961.5B | KZT 1.06T | KZT 486.2B | KZT 491.1B | KZT 491.1B | Free cash flowFCF |
| 5.1% | 75.7% | 55.2% | 19.2% | 12.1% | 12.1% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| KZT 340.4B | KZT 210.1B | KZT 560.1B | KZT 646.1B | KZT 0 | KZT 0 | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| — | KZT 63.7B | KZT 60.7B | KZT 2.9B | KZT 21.9B | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 86% | 71% | 78% | 69% | 43% | 43% | Return on equityROE |
| 18% | 46% | 26% | 26% | 43% | 43% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||||
| KZT 342.1B | KZT 615.4B | KZT 820.5B | KZT 619.5B | KZT 903.1B | KZT 903.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | — | — | KZT 16.2B | KZT 124.5B | KZT 124.5B | InventoryInvent. |
| — | — | — | KZT 16.2B | KZT 124.5B | KZT 124.5B | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | — | KZT 34.1B | KZT 17.4B | KZT 447.1B | KZT 447.1B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | KZT 5.12T | KZT 6.82T | KZT 8.38T | KZT 11.08T | KZT 11.08T | Total assetsAssets |
| 4.1× | 3.6× | 3.1× | 3.1× | 2.6× | 2.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| KZT 504.7B | KZT 819.2B | KZT 1.08T | KZT 1.52T | KZT 2.49T | KZT 2.49T | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | ||||||
| 192M | 192M | 190M | 190M | 191M | 191M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| KZT 4603.96 | KZT 6627.15 | KZT 10078.43 | KZT 13338.93 | KZT 21230.13 | KZT 21230.13 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| KZT 2247.36 | KZT 3051.38 | KZT 4431.43 | KZT 5477.15 | KZT 5631.06 | KZT 5631.06 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| KZT 303.27 | KZT 5237.65 | KZT 5691.43 | KZT 2913.41 | KZT 3123.91 | KZT 3123.91 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| KZT 236.49 | KZT 5015.07 | KZT 5561.31 | KZT 2561.03 | KZT 2576.84 | KZT 2576.84 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| KZT 1770.99 | KZT 1095.85 | KZT 2950.24 | KZT 3403.30 | KZT 0.00 | KZT 0.00 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| KZT 129.57 | KZT 310.17 | KZT 264.71 | KZT 504.27 | KZT 957.66 | KZT 957.66 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| KZT 2626.06 | KZT 4272.60 | KZT 5678.52 | KZT 7992.45 | KZT 13074.94 | KZT 13074.94 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 4-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +46.5%/yr | +46.5%/yr (4-yr) |
| Owner earnings / share | +79.1%/yr | +79.1%/yr (4-yr) |
| EPS | +25.8%/yr | +25.8%/yr (4-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | +64.9%/yr | +64.9%/yr (4-yr) |
| Book value / share | +49.4%/yr | +49.4%/yr (4-yr) |
The record, charted
FY2021–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business earned KZT 595.4B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the KZT 78.3B it takes just to hold its position. It put KZT 104.3B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was KZT 491.1B.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | KZT 1.07T | KZT 1.04T | KZT 841.4B | KZT 585.0B | KZT 431.9B |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +KZT 78.3B | +KZT 28.8B | +KZT 25.6B | +KZT 16.8B | +KZT 12.1B |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −KZT 477.8B | −KZT 486.7B | +KZT 239.2B | +KZT 419.2B | −KZT 373.6B |
| Cash from operations | KZT 673.6B | KZT 581.9B | KZT 1.11T | KZT 1.02T | KZT 70.4B |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −KZT 78.3B | −KZT 28.8B | −KZT 25.6B | −KZT 16.8B | −KZT 12.1B |
| Owner earnings | KZT 595.4B | KZT 553.1B | KZT 1.08T | KZT 1.00T | KZT 58.3B |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | −KZT 104.3B | −KZT 66.9B | −KZT 24.7B | −KZT 42.7B | −KZT 12.8B |
| Free cash flow | KZT 491.1B | KZT 486.2B | KZT 1.06T | KZT 961.5B | KZT 45.5B |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 15% | 22% | 56% | 79% | 7% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about KZT 78.3B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other KZT 104.3B of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income KZT 2.16T ÷ interest expense KZT 825.8B
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- Debt under-captured — leverage unknown, not low
What this means
This company pays far more interest than its tagged debt implies (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so its net cash or net debt cannot be read honestly: the gap is unknown, not zero, and 'net cash' here would be exactly the fiction the figure is meant to prevent. Judge it on the record and owner earnings instead.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Debt under-capturedIndustry peers: median 21%
What this means
This company's interest bill implies far more debt than its filings tag at the consolidated level (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so invested capital, and the return on it, cannot be read honestly. Judge this one on Owner Earnings and the record instead.
- High through the cycle5-yr median margin, range 7%–79%; latest KZT 595.4B = operating cash KZT 673.6B − maintenance capex KZT 78.3BIndustry peers: median 31%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 15% of revenue this year, a 22% median across 5 years. It chose to put KZT 104.3B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was KZT 491.1B — the gap is investment, not weakness.
- Mostly cash-backedCash from ops KZT 673.6B ÷ net income KZT 1.07T
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks KZT 21.9B ÷ Owner Earnings KZT 595.4B
What this means
Of KZT 595.4B Owner Earnings, KZT 21.9B (4%) went back to shareholders, KZT 0 dividends, KZT 21.9B buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 2.33×ExpandingCapex KZT 182.5B ÷ depreciation KZT 78.3B
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 2 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size —Revenue ≥ $2B (a dollar floor) · KZT 4.05T
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's floor is a dollar figure — about $2B of revenue as a conservative modern stand-in. This company reports in its home currency and we carry no exchange rate, so we show the figure and leave the size bar for you to apply rather than convert it with a number we don't have.
- Strong liquidity —Current ratio ≥ 2× · —
What this means
Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.
- Earnings stability PassA profit every year (5-yr record) · no losses
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · 4 of 5 yrs
What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are KZT 5176.71/share (latest year KZT 5641.53), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is KZT 13099.25/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2021–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 5 of 5
What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
- Operating margin 79% → 64% (2-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 79% early to 64% lately, median 78% — competition or costs are biting in.
- Owner earnings growth +2%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings grew about 2% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2025 · 53.5% op. margin
What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
- Share count −0.2%/yr
What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
- Dividend record rising
What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Elevated contestabilityThe product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“If the recommendations or analyses that AI applications assist in producing are deficient 18 or inaccurate, we could be subjected to competitive harm, potential legal liability, and brand or reputational harm.”
AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
How the cash was used, 2021–2025
Over the record, the business generated KZT 3.45T of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- ReinvestedKZT 412.9B · 12%
- DividendsKZT 1.76T · 51%
- BuybacksKZT 149.1B · 4%
- Retained (debt / cash)KZT 1.13T · 33%
- Returned to ownersKZT 1.91T
58% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, KZT 1.76T as dividends and KZT 149.1B as buybacks.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran KZT 149.1B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count−0.8%
The diluted count barely moved (192M to 191M): buybacks roughly offset the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend recordKZT 0.00/sh
Paid in 4 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.
- Return on what it retained1%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out (KZT 2.07T over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew KZT 28.6B, so each retained KZT 1 added about 0.01 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2021–2025.
1 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?18.3% vs 42.8%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 42.8% early in the record and 18.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
- Did the share count rise anyway?
- Did reported profit become cash?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
Peers, Commercial Services & Supplies
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KSPIJoint Stock Company Kaspi.kz | KZT 4.05T | 91% | 78.0% | — | 22% |
| GOOGAlphabet Inc. Class C Capital Stock | $402.8B | 57% | 26.4% | 21% | 31% |
| MSFTMicrosoft Corp. | $281.7B | 68% | 39.3% | 28% | 36% |
| METAMeta Platforms Inc. | $201.0B | 82% | 40.5% | 25% | 45% |
| CRMSalesforce Inc. | $41.5B | 74% | 3.7% | 3% | 22% |
| XYZBlock Inc. | $24.2B | 34% | -0.7% | -1% | 4% |
| ADBEAdobe Inc. | $23.8B | 87% | 32.2% | 33% | 39% |
| EBAYeBay Inc. | $11.1B | 76% | 23.3% | 16% | 22% |
| Group median | — | 75% | 29.3% | — | 27% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFEnter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Per the filing's own cover, “American Depositary Shares, each representing one common”; Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz reports in KZT, so every figure in this tool is stated per ADS and translated at KZT 1 = $0.002 (2026-07-17, reference rate) so your dollar quote reconciles exactly. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed, in KZT.
Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz has delivered.
Through the cycle, Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz earns about $1.9B on its 21.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.7% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
—
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Free cash flow $1.0B on 190M shares outstanding, per the 20-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net cash $1.9B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($387M) runs well above depreciation ($166M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.3B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Manual order: ← KRNT its page in the Manual KT →
Industry order: ← KRKR the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter LQDT →