Timur Turlov, founder and CEO of Nasdaq-listed Freedom Holding Corp., is expanding his investments beyond financial services. In early August, the entrepreneur's investment company Turlov Private Holding acquired stakes in one of Kazakhstan's leading business publishing houses as well as several radio and television assets, broadening a media portfolio that already spans business journalism, educational projects, streaming and investment content.
According to Forbes Kazakhstan, Turlov Private Holding became a co-owner of Kapital Publishing House, which owns the business news portal Kapital.kz. The publication covers business, macroeconomics, finance, banking, investment and political developments in Kazakhstan and international markets. Kapital.kz primarily targets Kazakhstan's business community and urban professionals. the platform attracts readers interested in macroeconomic trends, banking, entrepreneurship, personal finance, capital markets and technology.
As part of the same transaction, Turlov also acquired interests in five media companies operating across Kazakhstan's broadcasting sector:
Love Radio, one of the country's leading contemporary music stations;
Radio Dacha, a broadcaster focused on classic pop and disco hits;
Toy Duman, a popular music and entertainment television channel whose name translates as "celebration" or "festivity";
Umax FM, a regional music and news radio station based in Shymkent.
The ownership changes were officially registered on 29 July 2026, while several of the previous shareholders retained minority stakes in the businesses.
Building a Broader Media Portfolio
The latest acquisitions expand a media portfolio that Timur Turlov has been assembling over the past several years. According to Kazakh media reports, Kursiv Media Holding forms part of that portfolio. The group operates Kursiv, one of Kazakhstan's best-known business and public affairs media outlets, alongside several digital projects focused on economics, investment research and financial markets.
Timur Turlov is also the founder of Qalam, a historical and cultural platform publishing original research and educational content in Kazakh, Russian and English. The project collaborates with historians and researchers from Kazakhstan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China and several other countries, aiming to make the history of Central Asia more accessible to international audiences.
In 2024, Tatler Asia announced a licensing partnership with companies associated with Turlov to launch Tatler Kazakhstan, while also securing rights to develop Tatler Trkiye, Tatler Azerbaijan and Tatler Uzbekistan. Turlov was appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board overseeing the regional publishing business.
His investments in media have also expanded into the entertainment industry. In late 2024, Turlov joined the investor group behind Uni-Q Group, whose assets include the online streaming platform Unico Play, a film production studio and a content distribution company. The total investment programme was valued at more than $100 million over three years.
Timur Turlov has also invested in OnInvest, a digital investment platform providing market news, research and financial data covering more than 50,000 publicly traded companies worldwide, including a dedicated section focused on U.S. small- and mid-cap stocks.
Taken together, these assets demonstrate that Turlov's interests now extend well beyond financial services. His private investment portfolio increasingly combines business media, educational content, entertainment, streaming and investment intelligence, reflecting a broader strategy of building complementary digital ecosystems rather than standalone businesses.
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Freedom Media: Media as Part of a Fintech Ecosystem
Timur Turlov's media ambitions also extend into his core business. In 2024, Freedom Holding Corp . launched Freedom Media, a streaming platform designed to become part of the group's broader digital ecosystem. The company initially announced investments of $54 million in the project.
A year later, Turlov said Freedom planned to invest approximately $50 million over five years to expand the platform's content library, including licensing agreements with major international studios such as Paramount, Sony Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal.
Freedom Media surpassed 500,000 registered users in 2026. According to the company, around 77% of all viewing time is spent on Kazakh-language content, with the strongest audience engagement generated by the company's original productions released under the Freedom Media Originals label.
Unlike traditional streaming platforms, Freedom Media is designed as an integrated component of the Freedom ecosystem rather than a standalone subscription business. Around 90% of users access the service through Freedom SuperApp, which combines banking, brokerage, insurance, payments, travel and lifestyle services within a single digital platform.
The strategy resembles the ecosystem model adopted by companies such as Amazon, where streaming content is used not only as an independent source of revenue but also as a tool to strengthen customer engagement and increase usage across other digital services.
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Freedom Holding Remains the Core Asset
Despite the expansion of his private investment portfolio, Freedom Holding Corp. remains Timur Turlov's principal asset.
Founded as a brokerage business, the company has evolved into an international financial technology group operating across 22 countries. Today, its ecosystem combines brokerage, banking, insurance, telecommunications, payment services, e-commerce, travel and digital lifestyle products.
For the financial year ended 31 March 2026, Freedom Holding reported $2.19 billion in revenue and $153.3 million in net income. The banking business served 5.03 million customers, while the brokerage segment reached 858,000 client accounts. Other business lines collectively served more than 1.1 million customers, and the group's broader ecosystem, including partner services, reached approximately 14 million customers.
Freedom continues to pursue international expansion. In 2026, the company completed its acquisition of Turkish Bank A. and continued developing its European operations Timur Turlov remains the company's largest shareholder,. According to Forbes, his personal fortune exceeds $6 billion, placing him among the world's wealthiest entrepreneurs. He also ranks among Kazakhstan's richest business leaders.
While media investments have become an increasingly visible part of Turlov's private portfolio, they remain complementary to the much larger financial technology business that underpins his wealth. As Freedom expands internationally across banking, insurance, telecommunications and digital services, the entrepreneur appears to be building a parallel portfolio of media and content assets that reinforce audience engagement while broadening his presence beyond financial services.
The content has been authored in collaboration with our guest contributor, Daniel Harper.