NZSE Announces A New Name For A New Kind Of Exchange

The New Zealand Stock Exchange wishes to announce today that it has officially changed its name from NZSE Limited to New Zealand Exchange Limited, trading as NZX. The company will also take the ticker symbol 'NZX' when it lists on the Exchange's main board on Wednesday 4 June. The Board of Directors of NZSE Limited resolved to change the name of the company as a result of an ongoing business-wide strategic review. The new name reflects the increasing importance of the trading of other securities in addition to the Exchange's traditional equities base. It also reflects the company's new growth-driven mandate, and the need to build value and vitality into both the Exchange's infrastructure and New Zealand's capital markets.

Mark Weldon, NZX CEO, believes the new name is a powerful public symbol of the very real change that has been taking place within the Exchange over the last 12 months.

"We've spent the past year working hard to identify and develop the optimal conditions for enhancing market integrity and liquidity and we strongly believe we're now in a position to move forward. Changing our name to NZX gives us a visible opportunity to shift the perceptions of our organisation and to evolve into the kind of company needed to spearhead the development of New Zealand's capital markets." "Clearly, changing your name is not something you take lightly, particularly when it's the name of a 100 year old institution that sits at the very heart of New Zealand's capital markets," said Weldon. "We believe NZX embodies much of our heritage, while at the same time better representing where we're heading as a new kind of Exchange."

In developing the new corporate identity, NZX has also established three sub-brands for NZX's three key markets - NZSX or New Zealand Stock Market (formerly the Main Board), the NZDX or New Zealand Debt Market, and the evolving NZAX or New Zealand Alternative Market.

"We wanted to clearly differentiate the offerings of the three unique markets in order to deliver real value propositions to investors and companies alike," says Melissa Jenner, NZX Marketing & Communications Manager. "We also want to promote NZX as the parent brand as this represents the totality of the Exchange's offering. It gives us much more flexibility to expand and grow our offerings in the future and better gears the Exchange for delivery against its new mandate," said Jenner.

In addition to the names of the markets changing, the headline indices that the NZX manages will also change, for example, the NZSE50 will become the NZSX 50.

The new NZX.com website will be fully live by Wednesday 4 June with the new corporate identity and will comprise more extensive information and services for all market participants. This is an important financial communications tool which NZX intends to continually enhance and develop.

A full brand kit is available for NZX media vendors, listed Issuers and NZX Firms, who require new logos for display purposes. NZX intends to complete the re-branding phase as quickly as possible and will work as diligently as possible with all stakeholders to affect this.