ALMATY (Reuters) – Shareholders in Alliance Bank, Kazakhstan’s sixth-largest lender by assets, approved a plan to slash dividends on preferred shares in an attempt to restore its capital, the bank said on Friday.

Alliance, majority owned by the state since completion of a debt restructuring plan last year, also posted a net loss of 4.4 billion tenge (US $30 million) in the first six months of 2011 versus a year-ago profit of 310 billion.

Last April, Kazakhstan was in talk with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to sell a stake in Alliance Bank, potentially making it the first of the Kazakh banks that defaulted during the financial crisis to attract an international investor.

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