As he addressed his supporters at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow last month, President Vladimir Putin cited substantial growth - by more than 30 times - of the Russian companies' market capitalization as one of the most remarkable economic achievements in the recent period. This year, a considerable contribution has been made in this realm according to an analytical survey by Offerings.ru, entitled "IPOs in Russia: Steady Market Growth."
According to the survey, Russian companies held 16 IPOs worth a total of $19.2 billion during the reviewed January-September 2007 span. That is four offerings more than during the same period last year when 12 IPOs raised a combined $13.6 billion. By the end of December, the total number of this year's IPOs may reach 30, generating funds worth $25 billion, forecasts Yuri Ignatishin, managing director of the Offerings.ru project.
Kirill Tremasov, head of the Bank of Moscow Analytical Department, believes that such a forecast is well justified and that 2007 on the whole will surpass the success posted by IPOs in 2006.
Another positive trend observed by the survey is that IPOs by domestic companies are increasingly shifting from overseas stock exchanges to trading floors in Russia. In the near past, the London Stock Exchange had been the Russian firms' favorite stock-offering platform. In 2005, LSE accounted for 94 percent of the aggregate value of Russian IPOs. Last year, its share was 61 percent, and this year, a mere 57 percent. The remaining 43 percent was successfully staged on domestic exchanges - the Moscow InterBank Currency Exchange (MICEX), the Moscow Stock Exchange, and the Russian Trading System (RTS) Stock Exchange. Offerings.ru experts attribute this to initiatives pursued by the Federal Service for Financial Markets (FSFR) to develop the domestic securities market....MORE
