BTA's Shares plunge, Trading suspended

    Shares in BTA BTAS.KZ, Kazakhstan's biggest bank, plunged 77 percent before trading was suspended on Friday, prompting the banking regulator to say the bank was functioning normally.
    BTA's shares fell to 1,202 tenge on Friday from 5,200 tenge a day earlier after which the stock exchange suspended trading.
    The regulator subsequently said in a statement that BTA was working "in normal mode".
    "The Financial Supervision Agency is not taking any measures with regards to BTA in addition to those taken on February 1 to 2," it said.
    Earlier this month the government took a 75 percent stake in BTA with a capital injection of some $2 billion. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said earlier this week the bank would otherwise have collapsed.
    The bank declined to comment on the share price movement, according to Reuters.