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Corporate documents published on the Unified Portal of Corporate Information have confirmed that O’zbekiston pochtasi (UzPost), the national postal operator, is operating under trust management — a fact the head of the State Assets Management Agency (SAMA) explicitly denied just days before the disclosure. The protocol of an extraordinary general meeting of UzPost shareholders, dated 21 September 2026, establishes that a trust management agreement over the state’s 92.9% stake was signed on 30 December 2025 and transferred to ООО «WB INT EXPORT», a wholly owned subsidiary of Wildberries.
The agreement, numbered No. 01/3−94, was concluded for a term of one year on the basis of a Cabinet of Ministers resolution dated 13 October 2025. Spot.uz, which first reported the disclosure, described that resolution as a closed document — meaning its contents were not made publicly available at the time of signing or in the months that followed.
Official denial, then corporate confirmation
The timing of the disclosure is particularly significant. On 8 October 2026, Kun.uz correspondent Madina Ochilova raised the matter at a SAMA press conference, citing reports that UzPost had been placed under Wildberries’ trust management on the basis of a closed decree. She asked agency leadership when and on what grounds the arrangement had been made.
«На сегодняшний день договора доверительного управления нет. Есть только договор о сотрудничестве. Это нельзя напрямую назвать доверительным управлением. Был договор о привлечении к этому управлению. На сегодняшний день договора доверительного управления нет», — заверил глава АУГА Сохибжон Муродов.
SAMA head Sokhibjon Murodov told the press conference that no trust management agreement existed — only a cooperation agreement — and that the arrangement could not properly be described as trust management. The shareholder protocol published on the corporate information portal directly contradicts that characterisation: it records the existence of a signed trust management agreement by name, number, and date.
Wildberries consolidates board presence
The September 2026 extraordinary general meeting at which the trust management arrangement was formally noted also produced a significant change in UzPost’s governance. Shareholders — with SAMA acting as the state’s representative — elected a new supervisory board for a three-year term, with the majority of seats going to representatives of Wildberries. Among those elected was Akmal Primkulov, chief executive of ООО «WB INT EXPORT». At the same meeting, shareholders declined to approve a proposed 100 billion soum loan from Wildberries to UzPost.
Separately, Spot.uz had previously reported that UzPost was planning to receive a 360 billion soum interest-free loan from Wildberries — a figure substantially larger than the 100 billion soum facility rejected at the September meeting.
A year of conflicting signals
The confirmation of the trust management arrangement brings into focus a sequence of contradictory official communications stretching back to late 2025. Reports of a possible privatisation of UzPost first surfaced on 12 October 2025, with Wildberries named as a likely buyer of the state’s stake. The following day, UzPost acknowledged plans to attract investors, citing the growth of e-commerce and declining demand for traditional postal services, and described the investment as intended for infrastructure modernisation, logistics development, digital solutions, and expansion of branch networks including in rural areas.
A source familiar with the matter told Spot.uz that the state stake had been acquired by «РВБ» — the combined Wildberries & Russ entity. Two sources cited by RBC on the Russian market also confirmed Wildberries’ participation in the postal operator’s privatisation process, with one describing extensive plans by the marketplace in Uzbekistan.
Local digital ecosystem Uzum also entered the picture, expressing readiness to invest in UzPost and pledging to route up to 10% of all Uzum Market orders through the postal infrastructure. The group said it planned to invest $1.5 billion in Uzbekistan over the following three to four years, and subsequently confirmed it had submitted a bid for UzPost. Uzum argued that management of the postal service should account for national as well as commercial interests, and that a domestic IT company was better placed to unite UzPost’s partners across the market.
In September 2026, SAMA deputy head Alisher Miraliyev told Spot.uz in an interview that reports of a partial privatisation had no basis. He pointed to securities market legislation requiring any change in ownership to be publicly disclosed by the issuer itself, and characterised the earlier reports as rumour. That interview preceded by weeks the publication of the shareholder protocol confirming the trust management arrangement.
Transparency demands from the Anti-Corruption Agency
The opacity surrounding the process had already drawn a formal response from the Anti-Corruption Agency of Uzbekistan. In October 2025, the agency demanded that SAMA ensure openness and transparency in the disposal of a 29.4% state stake in UzPost, reminding the agency of its legal obligation to publish information about assets being privatised on the Open Data Portal. The demand came as the Cabinet of Ministers resolution authorising the trust management arrangement — the same resolution now confirmed in the shareholder protocol — was reportedly being kept from public view.
The ownership structure of UzPost has also shifted in the period leading up to the trust management arrangement. In June 2025, Aloqabank, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and related legal entities were removed from the list of UzPost’s affiliated persons. They were replaced by SAMA, entities connected to it, and the National Investment Fund of Uzbekistan (UzNIF). All three new entrants hold stakes of 20% or more. A 25% stake originally intended for UzNIF was subsequently transferred to SAMA in September 2025.
The gap between what SAMA’s leadership told the press and what the company’s own corporate filings record raises questions that neither agency has yet addressed publicly. The trust management agreement, signed nine months before Murodov’s denial, covers the overwhelming majority of UzPost’s state-held equity and places operational oversight in the hands of a subsidiary of a Russian marketplace — an arrangement that, on the basis of the available documents, was authorised by a Cabinet resolution that was never made public.