LSE to help Azerbaijani firms attract cheap capital
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) aims to develop cooperation with the Baku Stock Exchange (BSE) in order to help Azerbaijani companies attract stable and cheap capital, the LSE's development manager Maksim Kondratyuk said in his speech at a seminar on "Raising Capital in Baku and London: New Opportunities", organized by KPMG on Tuesday.
"Azerbaijan has a very interesting market and employs interesting companies. The LSE is successfully cooperating with companies from the CIS; more than 150 companies from countries of this region, such as Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are registered on the stock exchange. Many of them come through local exchanges on dual-listings. Currently, about 16 percent of trading on the LSE accounts for CIS companies. In 2013, this figure will reach 20 percent," Kondratyuk said.
According to him, the London Stock Exchange would like to assist Azerbaijan in developing relevant infrastructure so that investors would be able to make direct investments in local companies and in creating of new products.
"London investors are very interested in CIS countries. The London Stock Exchange, being an investment hub with high liquidity is in its turn a good platform for realizing these capabilities. The LSE operates the largest capital market, the total market capitalization of the companies exceeds $3 trillion dollars. More than 900,000 transactions totaling $ 9 billion are conducted on a daily basis," Kondratyuk said.
According to him, the largest number of international companies and investors investing in these companies work on the London Stock Exchange.
"Azerbaijan could acquire some of these investments. We have a large number of banks, analysts and consultants that could cover the IPOs of Azerbaijani companies," Kondratyuk said.