Three companies listed at Macedonian Stock Exchange were selected to participate in an initiative launched by the EBRD which aims to increase the public availability of equity research of listed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and address the information gap in coverage for under-researched listed companies.
Macedonian Stock Exchange and its listed companies become part of this important project covering stock markets of six countries from SEE region (Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and North Macedonia). Macedonian market, although smallest within this group, received three places. Аccording to the pre-determined criteria and based on individual acceptance of the issuers, the following companies were selected - Alkaloid AD Skopje, Komercijalna Banka AD Skopje and NLB Banka AD Skopje. All three companies are elements of the MBI-10 index.
A total of 20 companies listed on the participating stock exchanges from the six countries mentioned have been selected for the Programme according to specific criteria developed by EBRD’s consultant on the project, WOOD & Company, an investment bank specialised on emerging markets, which included regular reporting in English, sizable revenues, certain free float and not having established research coverage. The finally selected companies entered into MoUs with the local exchanges.
“The lack of systematic and continuous research coverage of the companies listed at the MSE, including our blue-chip stocks, is definitely among the main challenges facing our market. This, of course, is related with the issue of the price efficiency and attractiveness of instruments traded on our market to the wider investment public, both domestically and especially internationally. From our perspective, this new EBRD project, one of many that Bank is implementing in the region for what we are very grateful, by supporting investment research coverage and providing easily available investment reports and recommendations will significantly increase the volume of available quality information on many good regional companies (including three from Macedonia) with all positive implications from this for regional markets. The MSE’s future role in the project will be to support the communication between our listed companies and chosen analysts and distribution of the prepared reports within the timeframe of the project”, said Ivan Shteriev, Chief Executive Officer, Macedonian Stock Exchange.
“We are very proud to make an important contribution to put the financing of vital SMEs on broader foundations based on this project. It proves that knowledge is indeed power. SMEs crucial for the well-being of Europe’s economy and in the current coronavirus pandemic it is more important than ever to secure their funding”, said Hannes Takacs, Acting Co-Head, Local Currency and Capital Markets Development, EBRD.
The Programme is financed by the TaiwanBusiness EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund and does not require any additional financial costs on the part of the selected companies. It will run for two years, until 2022, and will provide research reports free of charge for the participating SMEs on the newly created Listed SME Research Hub (https://listed-sme.com/en-GB), administered by the SEE LINK DOO Skopje.
The first investment analyses of Macedonian companies are planned to be published in September (Alkaloid AD Skopje and Komercijalna Banka AD Skopje) and December (NLB Banka AD Skopje).
A joint press release regarding the new project: https://www.ebrd.com/news/2020/ebrd-and-partners-launch-sme-equity-research-programme.html