As a next step towards the creation of a joint Baltic market, the current Baltic List consisting of 15 largest listed companies of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian stock exchanges will be expanded to comprise all main list companies of the three exchanges as of 1 July 2004.
The securities will continue to be legally listed on their current home exchanges, but marketed jointly under the Baltic List.
The introduction of joint Baltic market is related to the adoption of the new trading platform in Estonia and Latvia at the end of September. Nordic-Baltic trading platform will be adopted in Vilnius in 2005.
"The Baltics are seen as a common investment area and our intention is to integrate the markets as much as possible ahead of the step into the new Nordic-Baltic trading platform," Gert Tiivas, president of OMHEX Baltic Operations, said.
At the end of September, I-List or secondary list companies will form the Baltic I-List, and all listed bonds will be integrated into the Baltic Bond List. Concurrently a new Baltic index will be launched, which will serve as a benchmark for the Baltic securities market. It will be capitalisation-weighted total-return index, comprised of all Baltic List securities. History of the index will be calculated back to January 2000.
Riga
In June the Riga Stock Exchange trading volume amounted to EUR 33.43 million: equity trading volume was EUR 10.51 million, while debt trading was EUR 22.94 million. SAF Tehnika with EUR 5.73 million the second month in a row continued to be turnover leader, followed by Ventspils nafta with EUR 2.13 million. Latvijas G‚ze with EUR 334 million continued to be the largest company according to market capitalisation.
Equity market capitalisation at the end of June was EUR 1014.45 million, while debt market value was EUR 646.92 million. Since the end of May Dow Jones Riga Stock Exchange index dropped by 2.56%; the growth since the beginning of the year is 12.03%. The main price gainers in June were Grindeks (+12.68%), Ditton PÕR (+8.70%) Olainfarm (+4.76%); 4 more Official or Second list companies gained in price. LASCO with -9.09% was the share price that lost most of all if compared to price decrease in per cents.
Starting with August 1, the tickers of the RSE listed shares and fund units will consist of five symbols, following the same principle as in Tallinn and Helsinki. For shares the first three symbols will be an abbreviation of the issuer's name, whereas the fourth symbol will be the securities serial code, and the fifth symbot will be letter R, standing for Riga.
Tallinn
In June, the equity turnover of Tallinn Stock Exchange amounted to EUR 49 million, compared to H1 figure of EUR 367 million. The most traded companies were the blue-chips Hansabank and Estonian Telecom. The number of equity trades in June reached 1,373 (total 10,803 in H1). At the end of the month the equity capitalisation stood at EUR 3,570 million. TALSE index has risen 22% since the beginning of the year, closing at 350.7 points at the end of June.
The bonds of AS Fenniger in volume of EUR 2.4 million were listed on the Bonds' List on June 3.
The shares of I-list company Estiko were delisted as of July 1 after the successful take-over bid.
On July 1, the membership of Nordea Securities at TSE was discontinued due to the internal reform of Nordea group. The company's membership on TSE, incl. Nordea Securities' trading codes, rights and obligations were transferred to Nordea Bank Finland Plc. as its legal successor.
The business name of another TSE member, Preatoni Bank, was changed to SBM Bank on June 18.
The Estonian government refused the share purchase offer of TeliaSonera, due on June 8, which was made with an aim to increase TeliaSonera's holding in their daughter company Estonian Telecom. With this the take-over bid to other minority shareholders of Estonian Telecom was also announced invalid, and TeliaSonera's holding in Estonian Telecom remained at 49%.
Estonian Telecom issued additional 310,000 shares via closed issue. On June 26 the shares were listed on the Main List under temporary separate trading code ETL3T, to be transferred under the main trading code of Estonian Telecom (ETLAT) after registration of the issue at the Commercial Registry.
Vilnius
During the past three months the total number of transactions in shares decreased from 470 to 300, whereas the number of transactions on the central market dropped down from 450 to 290 per session. Therefore the share turnover on the central market made up only one third of the total turnover and stood at EUR 16 million. The turnover of debt securities was for the second time this year bellow EUR 29 million. The aggregate securities turnover in June like in May fell behind the average monthly value of 2003 and stood at EUR 44.3 million.
A bit more than a half of the total share turnover in June was generated by Snaige AB shares. In addition to the shares of the abovementioned company, trading in shares of Ma²eiki¯ Nafta AB, Invalda AB, Lietuvos Telekomas AB and Vilniaus Vingis AB was traditionally active. Their turnover on the CM exceeded the threshold of EUR 0.3 million.
From the beginning of the year, the turnover of securities reached EUR 449 million, and the turnover of debt securities came to EUR 234 million. Share turnover of the six months of this year amounted to EUR 215 million and exceeded the annual share turnover of last year by EUR 42 million.
