The secondary public offering the government conducted to sell 15% in Transgaz Medias (TGN.RO) for 315 million lei (EUR73 million) drove transactions on the stock market to RON839 million in April, 73% higher than in April 2012.
The traded value usually slumps in April because investors wait to see the decisions of the general meetings of shareholders and the first quarter financial results, which companies publish in May, before adjusting their strategy. This is also when the stock market changes trend and the first corrections occur, after the rise in the first few months of the year.
This year was no different, either, as the BET index lost 5.3% in April, while the regional investment funds (SIF) plunged and the BET-FI index dropped 9.3%. The decline was because of the drop in trading compared with the previous months.
Transgaz offering accounted for 38% of the stock transactions in April and put brokerage firm Raiffeisen Capital&Investment on the top spot in its industry. Raiffeisen was lead manager of Transgaz’s SPO and the syndicate also included Czech Republic’s Wood and Banca Transilvania’s (TLV) brokerage firm BT Securities.
Wood, which promoted Transgaz’s offering to foreign equity funds, climbed to the second position in the brokers’ ranking, leaving Swiss Capital behind. Raiffeisen Capital&Investment, Wood and Raiffeisen Centrobank accounted for more than 50% of the transactions on the stock market in April.
Swiss Capital was the most active brokerage firm on the stock market in the first four months of the year, with RON1.46 billion in transactions and 26.6% market share. Wood came in second and Raiffeisen third.
Next in the ranking are BT Securities, BCR and Broker Cluj, three of the companies serving both retail and institutional customers, which have always been among the top ten in the last few years. NBG Securities climbed to seventh after failing to make the top twenty in the first four months of 2012. NBG’s transactions quadrupled in the first four months of 2013, even though overall transactions dropped 6.6%.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)