Two issues of Global Depositary Shares (GDSs) for a total of EUR 420.73 million were listed on the Euro MTF market of the Luxembourg Stock on Tuesday 4 August and Wednesday 5 August 2009.
Both of the GDS issues originated from companies in Taiwan. Approximately twenty percent of all depositary issues on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange come from Taiwan. These two new admissions mean that the Luxembourg Stock Exchange has listed a total of eleven depositary issues, for an amount of EUR 1,394.82 million, to date in 2009 and follow the admission to trading last week of two Global Depositary Receipt (GDR) issues and one GDS issue. The Luxembourg Stock Exchange now has 220 listing lines of GDSs, GDRs and related securities for 204 issuers from 17 countries worldwide.
The listing on Tuesday was for Inotera Memories Inc., a maker of computer memory chips and a joint venture between Nanya Technology Corp and US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. Inotera GDSs are already admitted to trading on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and Tuesday’s listing was in the form of an additional GDS tranche. It raised USD 342.40 million and was comprised of 64,000,000 GDSs (ISIN: US45773W2089) each representing 10 common shares of the company.
Wednesday’s admission was for Green Energy Technology Inc., a solar power company and a member of the Tatung group. It raised USD 78.33 million from an issue of 6,393,695 GDSs (ISIN: US39303W2008), each representing 5 common shares of the company. The proceeds of the issue will be used for facilities construction, the purchase of raw materials, to repay loans and for future investments such as solar power plants in Spain.
GDSs and GDRs are instruments that represent shares in underlying issuing companies and are particularly useful for companies in emerging markets by enabling them to have access to foreign capital markets. For investors, mainly institutional, such instruments are often the simplest means to invest in a specific share without buying them at local level. The Luxembourg Stock Exchange was the first European exchange to list a GDR and has experience in depositary receipts and depositary shares going back to the 1960’s.
