Securities market in 2008 was less buoyant than last year, but with encouraging trends

Last year, the investors invested in companies through constituent and additional share issues worth 782 million lei (19 million and 763 million lei respectively), including foreign investment of 347 million lei (5 million and 342 million respectively), Alexandra Puscas, a member of the Administration Board of the National Commission on the Financial Market (CNPF), told Info-Prim Neo in an interview. The share issues registered by the CNPF in 2008 made up 61% of the volume registered in 2007, according to preliminary data. But the number of joint stock companies that issued sets of additional and constituent shares rose to 147, by 87 more than in 2007. According to Alexandra Puscas, the most important constituent share issues were those performed by the insurance company Delta-asigurari SA (7 million lei), SA Moldvinipoteca (2 million lei) and SA Broker MD (0.5 million lei). The largest sets of additional shares were issued by SA Lafarge Ciment (148 million lei), Investprivatbank (50 million lei), Mobiasbanca Grup Societe Generale (29 million lei), MAIB leasing (30 million lei), Procreditbank (24 million lei) and others. Among the legislative amendments introduced in 2008, Puscas mentioned the entrance into force of the Law on Joint Stock Companies, which obliged all the professional participants in the securities market to reorganize themselves into SAs (joint stock companies). Among these were the brokerage and dealers company Fasim, Daak Invest, Iuventus DS, the financial group Soliditate and others. A number of joint stock companies reinvested the net profit made the previous years in development, the quoted source said. A major investment of the kind was made by the joint stock company Floare-Carpet, whose additional share issue made from its own capital totaled 24 million lei. The transactions performed on the secondary market in 2008 reached a record level of 2.13 billion lei or 114% on 2007. The largest transaction volume was recorded on the over-the-counter segment of the secondary market – 1.1 billion lei or 1.8 times more compared with 2007. The transactions carried out on the stock market came to 992 million lei, making up 47 % of the total volume of transactions. Compared with 2007, the transaction volume on the stock market was 80%. But, taking into account the number of exchange transactions, this volume was 121%. The largest number of transactions were performed with shares of Moldova’s largest bakery Franzeluta (298 transactions) and of MoldovaAgroindbank (145 transactions). The transactions with state-owned shares conducted on Moldova’s Stock Exchange added up to 469 million lei, which is about 47% of the total volume of transactions. Alexandra Puscas also said that 15 companies are listed on the Moldova Stock Exchange. The average price of a share at yearend 2008 was: 2,002 lei per share in Moldovaagroindbank, 450 lei per shares in Banca Sociala (during the year a share traded even for 1,000 lei), 197 lei per share in Banca de Economii, 200 lei per share in Mobiasbanca, 128 lei per share in Investprivatbank, 774 lei per share in Moldinconbank, 270 lei per share in Victoriabank, 111 lei per share in Efes Vitanta Moldova Brewery, 20 lei per share in Universcom, and 30 lei per share in Floarea Soarelui.