Warsaw Stock Exchange - Record-Breaking IPO Value

In the 1st half of 2007, 33 companies offered their securities in IPOs on the WSE. Four of these entities originated from abroad (Warimpex - Austria, Immoeast - Austria, ACE - Spain, Orco Property Group - Luxemburg) and 5 companies moved from the MTS-CeTO market (Mewa, Hawe , ZL Orze?, Rafamet and Karen Notebook).

In 2007, a total of 60 companies will debut on the WSE, including 6-8 foreign entities. Similarly, 6-8 companies, will move their shares from the MTS-CeTo market to the WSE.

Graph 1 – Number of IPOs in 1H of 2006 and 2007

The value of IPOs in the first half of 2007 exceeded PLN 15.2 billion, including nearly PLN 13.3 billion in new issues. This sets a WSE historical record (IPOs in the previous record-high 2004 amounted to PLN 13.1 billion, of which only PLN 1.5 billion were new share issues). The respective figures for the first half of 2006 were PLN 364 and 216 million.

The PLN 10.7 billion IPO of the Austrian real estate developer Immoeast was the largest initial public offer in WSE history (Polish investors acquired shares for ca. PLN 463 million). The second largest IPO in 2007 was the offer of LC Corp, worth in excess of PLN 1 billion. The third debut, in terms of value, was the Polish real estate developer JW Construction (PLN 777 million). The PLN 652 million IPO of Orco Property Group is the next largest one (Polish investors acquired ca. 55%, i.e. PLN 395 million, of the issue).

The data cited above shows that the WSE is an attractive market for placing large (both in Polish and European terms) public offers in the range of USD 300 to 500 million.

Table 1 – Largest IPOs in the WSE History

 

The Warsaw Stock Exchange becomes, furthermore, a regional driving force in IPOs originating from the real estate development sector, a part of the economy which is interesting to investors both in terms of value and growth potential. The number of recent, as well as planned, initial offers by companies from this sector support this thesis.

In order to provide investors with an analytical tool helping them to asses the activity in this sector, the WSE started to publish, on 18 June, the WIG-Developers sub-index.

The structure of debuts shows that an increasing number of large Polish private companies raise capital on the WSE. Three out of ten largest IPOs, from entities of this group, took place in 2007 – LC Corp., JW Construction and Noble Bank. The total value of these offers amounted to PLN 2,1 bln.

Table 2 – Largest IPOs by Polish private entities

 

WSE listed companies were also very active in H1 2007: they raised nearly PLN 2.1 billion in secondary share issues. By comparison, this value was PLN 1 billion in H1 2006. The total capital raised in the first half of 2007 (both through initial and secondary issues) amounted to PLN 15,2 billion.

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is proud to be among the most active IPO markets in Europe. In 2006, 38 companies joined our trading floor, and 35 in 2005.