The year 2007 saw the revival of the home market and the "internationalisation" of Wiener Börse – Cooperation in the regions of CEE and SEE intensified – Goals for 2008: To fly even higher
(Vienna) Wiener Börse can look back at an excellent year 2007 for the stock market. “The average monthly trading volumes developed highly satisfactorily this year and rose from EUR 10.5bn (2006) to around EUR 15bn. The volume of initial public offerings (IPOs) and capital increases was more or less at the same very high level of the previous year, and some EUR 10.1bn fresh capital flowed into the market,” said Michael Buhl, Member of the Management Board of Wiener Börse AG, in his summary of the stock market year 2007. In June, additional impulses to liven up the domestic financial market came from the newly created mid market, a segment designed specifically to enable companies with lower financing needs to tap the capital market. Market capitalisation as of 19 December 2007 was EUR 154.5bn (December 2006: EUR 146.2bn).
The internationalisation of Wiener Börse advanced in great leaps in 2007 as well. “This year, for the first time, the exchange has more foreign investment banks participating directly in trading on Wiener Börse than domestic ones. The share accounted for by international members in trading volumes has risen continuously in the past few years – from 16.6% (2002) to 64.5% as of 19 December 2007,” stated Member of the Management Board Heinrich Schaller.
Cooperation projects in the region of CEE and SEE intensified
Within the scope of the Eastern Europe strategy, a new cooperation agreement was signed with the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange and the State Agency, the National Depositary and the exchange PFTS in the Ukraine. The range of indices offered by Wiener Börse has been expanded to 30 indices. Seven of the nine new indices added this year track the trends for countries, regions or sectors of the CEE region. Since July 2007, the data customers of Wiener Börse have been able to receive price data from the Bucharest Stock Exchange via their existing data lines.
Goal for 2008: Advance internationality
“International trading members have contributed substantially to the success achieved by Wiener Börse. In 2008, we also plan to invest efforts to advance the internationality of Wiener Börse further,” said the two members of the Management Board of Wiener Börse. “We will win new participants for the cash market as well as for the derivatives market, and will also pursue new paths to broaden the investor base: for example, we are organising a roadshow with Austrian companies for the first time in Dubai. Lively primary market activity is also expected to draw international attention in the new year: in addition to capital increases, the members of the Management Board of Wiener Börse also hope to see seven new IPOs.