Before Lancaster Group was formed, each of its present four shareholders was active and successful in the Kazakhstan’s business and political environment.

In 1990, prior to holding government office, Nurlan Kapparov founded “Accept Corporation”, which under Mr. Kapparov’s guidance and in line with Erbolat Dossaev’s successful management, had developed into one of the leading holding companies in Kazakhstan. In 1997, Accept Corporation owned and managed over forty companies in the telecommunications, agriculture, consumer goods, wholesale, retail and services sectors.

In the meantime, Berik Kaniyev and Yuriy Pak were the founders of Kazneftecom, one of the biggest oil products distributors in Kazakhstan and KBK, a prominent investment group.

At the time, the Government of Kazakhstan began to invite successful entrepreneurs to take part in the management of state companies. Being one of them, Mr. Kapparov became the President of the oil transportation company KazTransOil in 1997, national oil and gas company KazakhOil (currently KazMunaiGas) in 1998, and subsequently served as Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Mr. Kapparov spent a total of four years working in the government and national companies.

During the same period, Mr.Kapparov’s business associate, Mr. Dossaev was also invited to work in the government where he spent over nine years holding a number of high-level positions including Minister of Finance and Minister of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Mr. Kaniyev served as Vice-president of KazakhOil and Advisor to the Prime-Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan between 1998 and 1999, while Mr. Pak held the position of the head of department in Kazakhoil.

In 2003, Mr. Kapparov, Mr. Kaniyev and Mr. Pak - close friends for more than 20 years - consolidated their business positions into one holding by disposing of non-core assets, joining forces by merging assets and developing new and prospective companies under common management and with a single vision. Joint efforts led to the formation of Lancaster Group.

In 2006, Mr. Dossaev, a longtime friend of the other shareholders and a former partner of Mr. Kapparov in Accept Corporation, was invited by three other shareholders to join Lancaster Group as an equal partner and a member of the board of directors.

At present, Lancaster Group is rapidly developing and gaining a solid presence in the key segments of business with the highest upside potential, including financial services, upstream and downstream oil & gas, mining, private equity investments and real estate.