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These appointments increase the operational staffing of the department responsible for issuer control from five to seven people. This increase is necessary partly because of growth in market activity, partly to replace employees moving to other duties and partly because of the need for additional monitoring of the accounting information published by issuers. The work of Oslo Børs in respect of issuer surveillance presently comprises listing issues, approving prospectuses and ensuring that companies fulfil their responsibility to publish information, including accounting information.
"Oslo Børs now has excellent expertise in issuer surveillance. We are also well prepared to take on responsibility for the additional supervision of accounting information that will be required by the new Accounting Act and EU directives in this area – including recruiting of additional staff ", comments Sven Arild Andersen, President and CEO of Oslo Børs.
The Supervision and Control Section is headed up by Henning Dokset. The members of staff working in the issuer surveillance function will be as follows:
Merete Myhrstad is a MBA graduate of the Norwegian School of Management and a state authorised accountant graduate of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She has worked for Oslo Børs since 1998, principally in the issuer surveillance area. Merete Myhrstad’s duties have also included customer responsibility for members of Oslo Børs, including marketing membership to investment firms. Prior to joining Oslo Børs, Merete Myhrstad worked for six years as an auditor with Arthur Andersen & Co (now Ernst & Young).
Kjell Sjuve is a MBA graduate of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. He has worked for Oslo Børs since autumn 2002. Prior to this, Kjell Sjuve worked as a financial analyst at the National Insurance Scheme Fund.
Gorm Gudim is a MBA and state authorised accountant graduate of the Norwegian School of Management. Gorm Gudim is an employee of Deloitte, but is currently seconded to Oslo Børs to work on the supervision of company accounting information. His secondment to Oslo Børs started in November 2003.
Sven Arne Engevik is a MBA and MSc graduate of the Norwegian School of Management. He joined Oslo Børs in March 2004. Prior to this, Sven Arne Engevik worked as an auditor with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, and also worked in the corporate finance department of Handelsbanken Capital Markets.
Truls Birkeland is a graduate of the University of Newcastle. He will join Oslo Børs on 1 June. Truls Birkeland’s work experience includes the listed companies Kenor and Crew, and he is currently the Corporate Finance Manager at Crew having previously been IR Officer at Kenor.
Linn Cathrin Slettedal is a state authorised accountant graduate of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She has worked for Deloitte for seven years, and for the last three years has worked 50% as an auditor and 50% in Deloitte’s technical department. Linn Cathrin Slettedal will take up her appointment at Oslo Børs on 1 August.
Lars Jacob Braarud is a state authorised accountant graduate of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. He is currently head of group accounting at Norske Skog where he has worked for eight years, and prior to this he worked in the audit department of Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers). Braarud will take up his appointment at Oslo Børs on 1 July.
In addition all four members of the Oslo Børs legal department work on issuer surveillance, and devote some 50% of their time to this area.
The Ministry of Finance is currently working on proposals for a revised Accounting Act, partly in order to implement the EU directive on international accounting standards. The question of appointing a supervisory body to monitor and control the accounting information published by listed companies will be an issue in the proposals due to be circulated this summer. Oslo Børs has made a case for this surveillance function to be delegated to the exchange as an extension of its current responsibility for monitoring issuers' accounts. If Oslo Børs is given responsibility for this surveillance function, it will recruit additional staff to monitor the publication of accounting information.
