The website uses cookies that do not contain personal data and serve for the sole purpose of improving the user experience. Your presence on the website implies that you agree to the use of these cookies. For more details about personal data protection, please read the following link.
20th Annual Conference

On the 29th of March, in Ohrid, the 20th Annual Conference organized by the Macedonian Stock Exchange AD Skopje was held. This event hosted the representatives of the financial sector and the securities industry, listed companies, state institutions and universities and all others whose activity is related to the securities.

The conference was opened with introductory speeches by the President of the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, the President of Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia, Nora Aliti and , Chief Executive Officer of the Macedonian Stock Exchange AD Skopje, Ivan Steriev.

Zoran Zaev, President of the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia

 

Nora Aliti, President of Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia

 

Ivan Steriev, Chief Executive Officer of the Macedonian Stock Exchange AD Skopje

You can download the speech of the MSE CEO Ivan Steriev on the following link (only in Macedonian)

 

The working part of this year's conference began with the presentation of the Professor in South East European History and Politics and director of the Center for South East European Studies at the University of Graz, Florian Bieber on the topic “Geopolitics in the Western Balkans – what should investors expect?”

Florian Bieber, Director of the Center for South East European Studies, University of Graz

 


On the first panel discussion "Financing of corporate development", Peter Righi, co-founder and Global Director of CEED, Dejan Kalinikov, Executive Director of SEAF Macedonia, Ivana Gažić, President of the Zagreb Stock Exchange and Lars Olofsson, CEO of Prio Startup LTD, Sweden shared their experience on this subject. The main discussion was why Macedonian companies mainly finance their development through bank loans and their own accumulation, and they are not trying to acquire fresh capital through the Stock Exchange or through alternative sources of financing. What are the challenges that the company faces when preparing the Initial Public Offer and why there are no IPOs in our country yet. As addition of the discussion, the guests from America, Croatia and, Sweden shared their experience of investing in new companies and their growth.

Panel 1:"Financing of corporate development"

 

After the first panel, Tomás Carruthers, Chief Executive Officer of Project Heather - Scottish Stock Exchange gave a talk about “Why we need local stock exchanges?” He shared his experience in forming the Heather project and launching the Stock Exchange in Scotland.

Tomás Carruthers, Chief Executive Officer, Project Heather - Scottish Stock Exchange


Jošt Dolničar, Member of the Management Board, Sava Reinsurance Company spoke about the experience of the merger and acquisition activities of the Sava Re Group in the region in his presentation “Mergers and acquisitions of financial institutions in the SEE region”.

Jošt Dolničar, Member of the Management Board, Sava Reinsurance Company

 

Vladislav Hadjidinev, CFO and Member of the Management Board, UNI Bank, Dejan Nikolovski, Head of the Department for International Financial Relations and Public Debt Management, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of North Macedonia, Petar Trpevski, Head of Corporate Management Division, Sprakase Bank Macedonia and Jim Turnbull, Associate Director, Debt Capital Markets - Local Currency and Capital Markets Development (LC2), EBRD were part of the second panel discussion "2019 - Year of Bonds!". The participants discussed about the listing of the continuous government bonds on the Macedonian Stock Exchange and the issue of corporate bonds (one perpetual and one convertible), how it impacts the capital market and what is the future of this market segment. At the same time, the strategic vision and experience of the EBRD in its countries of operations in this regard, were also discussed, taking into account their activities for the development of innovative products, especially fixed income instruments.

Panel 2: "2019 - Year of Bonds!"

 

As a part of the 20th Annual Conference of the Stock Exchange held on March 29th in Ohrid, the Macedonian Stock Exchange for the 12th time awarded the "Crystal Bell" award for the most transparent listed companies.
Awards were given to three companies from a total of 105 listed joint stock companies on Macedonian Stock Exchange AD Skopje that were rated as the most transparent in 2018.


According to the estimates of the Election Commission for the Most Transparent Listed Companies on the Macedonian Stock Exchange for 2018, the following were selected:


I place - ALKALOID AD SKOPJE
II place - KOMERCIJALNA BANKA AD SKOPJE
III place - NLB BANK AD SKOPJE
 

"Crystal Bell" for Alkaloid AD Skopje

 

"Crystal Bell" for Komercijalna banka AD Skopje

 

"Crystal Bell" for NLB Banka AD Skopje

The report on the selection of the most transparent listed joint stock companies on the Macedonian Stock Exchange AD Skopje in 2018, which contains the selection methodology, as well as the received assessments from all target groups by category, can be downloaded on the following link. (only in Macedonian)

 

For the performances that the authorized participants had achieved on the Macedonian securities market in the total turnover and the total number of transactions realized on the Stock Exchange during 2018 were rewarded:


Komercijalna Banka AD Skopje, for the first place
Ilirika Investments AD Skopje, for second place
NLB Bank AD Skopje, for the third place

Komercijalna Banka AD Skopje

 

Ilirika Investments AD Skopje

 

NLB Bank AD Skopje


You can download the method of ranking of these participants on the following link.

 

Within the last thematic part of this year's conference titled “Trending…” four speakers took part:


Pawel J. Szaja spoke on the topic "Other side of the preparation of the IPO" and gave an overview of what is needed in the process of preparing an initial public offer from a legal aspect, the positive and the negative sides and the different practices in the countries.

Pawel J. Szaja, Partner, Shearman & Sterling (London) LLP

 

The next presentation "Implementation of MIFID II in small countries - Lessons learned?" was made by Damyan Leshev, who spoke in general about MIFID II, the implementation of this regulation, how the implementation in Bulgaria developed and what are the benefits of MIFID II in small countries.

Damyan Leshev, Partner, "Tsvetkova Bebov Komarevski Attorneys-at-Law"

 

Elmar Voggenhuber presented "New technologies in the capital market". He outlined the innovations in the world of finance and investment management, the platforms used in analyzes, databases, the use of programming languages and pointed out that they are just the beginning of everything else that follows.


Elmar Voggenhuber, Investment & Advisory Specialist, Refinitiv


The last presentation "Artificial Intelligence - the new "player" in the business world" was by Ilijanco Gagovski. He explained the basic concepts of artificial intelligence, in which areas it is applied and what can be expected in the future, i.e. how the artificial intelligence will develop.

Ilijanco Gagovski, Founder and Director of PrymApps