TauKen Group's journey began not in boardrooms or financial centers - but in the wheat fields of Central Kazakhstan. On February 14, 2001, Nasipbay Akhmetov, a young entrepreneur with no institutional backing and no inherited fortune, registered his first company. Armed with little more than determination and a relentless work ethic, he rose before dawn at 5 a.m. every morning, seven days a week; his goal - to build something of substance.
The business started in agriculture, growing and selling wheat to local markets. It was humble, seasonal, and physically demanding. But it was also the beginning of a vision: to create a company that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants of Kazakhstan's industrial economy.
As the country's infrastructure needs evolved, so did Akhmetov's ambitions. The company pivoted into the oil and gas sector, offering steel pipe dismantling services to national operators. Over the next several years, TauKen dismantled and sold over 300,000 tons of pipe - working with clients such as KazTransOil, Stroytransgaz, and KazMunayGas. The work was rugged, remote, and logistically complex. But it taught the team how to manage scale, navigate compliance, and deliver results under pressure. It also laid the foundation for TauKen's next chapter: mining.
The mining sector would become TauKen's true proving ground. Starting with a single excavator, Akhmetov reinvested every earned tenge into equipment, training, and operational capacity. Within a few years, the company had acquired 10 more machines. Within 15 years, it owned and operated a fleet of over 300 heavy units serving tier-one clients across Kazakhstan's mineral-rich regions. TauKen became known for its reliability, safety culture, and ability to execute high-volume rock movement, precision blasting, and civil engineering groundworks.
The company's footprint expanded rapidly. TauKen played a key role in the construction of the Zhezkazgan–Beineu and Mointy-Kyzylzhar railways, as well as national highways that now connect Kazakhstan's industrial corridors. Its workforce grew to over 2,000 engineers, technicians, and operators.
Its client list came to include ERG, KazMinerals, Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, RG Gold, and Soidcore Resources. And its reputation shifted from local contractor to strategic partner.
But TauKen's founder never lost sight of the bigger picture: to build a company that could compete not just locally, but globally.
In 2023, TauKen Group entered a new era. The company partnered with Gliese Capital LLC, an investment firm headquartered in Almaty, with representative offices in London and Dubai for a full organisational restructure. The goal was clear: to become bankable, compliant, and capital markets-ready by the end of 2025.
Under Gliese's guidance, TauKen adopted international fiscal rules, corporate governance frameworks, and institutional-grade reporting. The company was restructured under a holding entity TauKen Group incorporated in the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), with six specialised subsidiaries for each vertical it operated in.
Ernst & Young were retained in Q2 of 2025 to audit financials across 2022, 2023, 2024, and H1 2025. A formal capital markets rating process was also initiated with Moody's Investors Service. With the assistance of export-credit the current fleet is set to triple, and workforce double within the next two years. The company is on a 5-year expansion plan to procure equipment from Komatsu, SANY, Volvo, Hitachi, SDLG amongst other for a US $600m expansion to fulfill its existing and secured contracts totaling US $2b. The company will further prepare for a corporate bond issuance in 2027, with plans to list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), and Astana International Exchange (AIX) by Q4 2030.
This transformation wasn't cosmetic, it was foundational. TauKen became one of the few privately held industrial firms in Central Asia with a bankable roadmap, export-credit-insured procurement programs, and access to global capital.
Today, TauKen Group stands as a symbol of what's possible in Kazakhstan's private sector. From wheat fields to billion-dollar infrastructure contracts, from dismantling pipes to deploying autonomous machinery, the company's story mirrors the country's own evolution from post-Soviet resilience to capitalist ambition.
Nasipbay Akhmetov's journey is not just one of personal success, it's a blueprint for industrial transformation. His 5 a.m. starts, his reinvestment discipline, and his refusal to compromise on integrity have built more than a company. They've built a legacy.
And as Kazakhstan accelerates its economic modernisation, TauKen Group is ready to lead - with scale, governance, and a vision for regional impact.
