Friday, February 17 2012 16:28
Head of NASDAQ OMX Armenia expects with optimism 2 news IPOs in 2012
ArmInfo. The current year should become crucial for the Armenian capital market, Director General of NASDAQ OMX Armenia Konstantin Saroyan said at today's press conference in Yerevan. He pointed out that all the necessary premises for issue of shares have been created for the potential issuers in the market in general and in stock exchange in particular. However, the Armenian businessmen still display and a wait-and-see approach. At the same time, Saroyan said that the mechanism of tax concessions for issuers is valid till the end of this year only.
To recall, according to the amendments to Law "On profit tax", the Armenian companies that are listed at the stock exchange and have 20% of shares in free float, and at least 100 shareholders receive 50% profit tax allowance within the next three years.
Saroyan said that the stock exchange continues negotiating with the potential issuers to withdraw from the capital market, and confessed that the negotiations are proceeding hard and slowly. Nevertheless, Saroyan expects with optimism at lest 2 new IPOs in the Armenian capital market in 2012.
When summing up the results of the year 2011, the director general said that the positive trend on transactions with shares continued in 2011 as well. The volume of the transactions amounted to 200.3 mln AMD, with the y-o-y growth being 57%. At the moment, the shares of 3 companies are circulating in the stock exchange, and 9 more issues of 8 companies are eligible for trading on the floor.
According to Saroyan's data, the market capitalization by late 2011 totaled 53.8 bln AMD, with the y-o-y growth being 2.3%. Only 91 transactions with corporate bonds worth 708.9 mln AMD were concluded in 2011 (by 75% less than in 2010). The volume of transactions on REPO agreements considerably declined (by 45.6%). In 2011 2 new issues of corporate bonds of two issuers - ARARATBANK and Valetta were listed, and the bonds of the National Mortgage Company were considered eligible for trading on the floor.
The transactions with government bonds slightly grew to 5.37 bln AMD by late 2011. The average exchange rate over 2011 was 372.93 AMD/1$. The biggest volume of the transactions in 2011 was fixed on the floor of short-term interbank overnight loans (2.7 trln AMD), and the average monthly volume of transactions was 228 bln AMD, which was 3.5-fold more than in 2010.
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