NZX Annual 2014 operating metrics show another positive year for capital markets
NZX’s full year 2014 metrics demonstrate New Zealand’s capital markets experienced another stellar year, with strong growth in listings and market capitalisation.
It was an exceptional year for new listings, with a total of 19 entities undertaking IPOs or compliance listings, contributing an additional $4.74 billion to New Zealand’s capital markets. There was also significant growth in debt listings, with new debt issuances up 755% on 2013.
While there was 9.8% growth in trade volumes over the year, the total value traded dropped 17.2%. Real time data terminals remained steady on 2013, with a small increase in the number of retail terminal numbers.
Funds under management and units on issue saw significant increases of 40.4% and 45.9% respectively, largely attributable to the launch of two new Exchange Traded funds by NZX’s Smartshares funds management business in December 2014 – the Australian Property Trust and Australian Index Trust. NZX also announced the purchase of leading New Zealand superannuation and passive funds manager SuperLife, positioning NZX strongly in the growing retirement savings market, and enabling the planned launch of additional ETFs during 2015.
NZX’s Agri business recovered from the impact of the droughts that stagnated growth in 2013, with Agri subscriptions up 14.9% and the volume of advertising in print publications up 1.6% on 2013. During the third quarter NZX Agri launched two online forecasting tools developed in conjunction with Massey University, designed to provide better insights into New Zealand milk production and farmgate milk prices.
NZX’s Derivatives business continued to show strong growth with lots traded up 174.9% on 2013 to 101,010. NZX diversified its derivative product offering during the year with the launch of a Butter Futures Contract in the fourth quarter and equity derivatives in in the third quarter.
NZX’s Australian business Clear Grain Exchange traded 594,619 tonnes during 2014, slightly down on tonnes traded in 2013. Clear Grain Exchange also diversified its product offering during the period with the launch of a forward grain contract.
NZX Regulation Metrics
NZX also released its annual 2014 regulation metrics today. These show NZX Regulation commenced 178 investigations of issuers and participants during the year compared to 140 in 2013. Other key regulation statistics are included in the full metrics documents.