ARMENIA’S ARARAT BANK TO DEBUT ON WARSAW BOURSE IN 2010.
Poland Today
September 2, 2009 Wednesday
Armenia’s Ararat Bank plans to debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE)
in 2010, the bank’s CEO Ashot Osypian told the daily Rzeczpospolita
. The exact value of the offer prior to the debut is now being
calculated, he added. The president explained that the bank wanted to
enter the Polish market so as to gather capital and ensure a stable
market for its shareholders as well as its valuation by international
investors. Currently, Ararat Bank is listed on Nasdaq OMX Armenia,
which is much smaller than the WSE, the daily notes. In 2008, the bank
reported net profit of AMD 580mn with total assets of AMD 29.63bn (USD
1 = AMD 306.73 as of Dec 31, 2008). The bank’s shareholders include
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) holding
25%, with 74.1% of the capital belonging to Flash LLC. Furthermore
the WSE is noticing increased interest from would-be listed foreign
companies and it counts on a number of firms from the CEE region
entering the market next year, Robert Kwiatkowski from the WSE’s
development department told Rzeczpospolita . Currently, there are 24
foreign companies listed on the WSE’s main market, but one of them,
the low-cost airlines SkyEurope Holding AG announced on Tuesday an
immediate suspensions of its sales and operations . The WSE suspended
the company’s quotations due to unreliability of information and the
company’s quotations suspension on the Vienna market. tom