2014-09-30 19:36:06

Fifth Anniversary of Catalyst

Warsaw, 30 September 2014

Fifth Anniversary of Catalyst

PRESS RELEASE

  • It has been five years on 30 September since the debt securities market Catalyst launched
  • Catalyst listed bonds of 188 Polish and foreign issuers at the end of August; bonds of 38 issuers were newly listed on the market in the eight months of 2014
  • The total value of 462 series of non-Treasury bonds was PLN 68 billion

It is five years now since Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) launched the organised debt securities market Catalyst.

"We realise that Catalyst is a pillar of our business and recalibrated strategy. In the nearest future, we would like to focus on building up its liquidity by attracting a bigger number of stable companies. We very much want to promote public issues, which should increase the interest of investors in the market, in particular individual investors. Catalyst has a huge growth potential as demonstrated among others by the value of bonds in issue to GDP, which stands at 6 percent in Poland. This is much less than in other European countries," said Paweł Tamborski, President of the Management Board of WSE.

Issuing bonds in order to finance business activity is increasingly popular. The number and the value of bonds listed on Catalyst have been growing year after year. Catalyst listed 462 series of non-Treasury bonds at an aggregate value of PLN 68 billion at the end of August 2014.

Figure 1. Number of bond series listed on Catalyst (non-Treasury bonds)

Source: WSE data as at the end of August 2014, by quarter

Figure 2. Value of bond series listed on Catalyst (PLN bn, non-Treasury bonds)

Source: WSE data as at the end of August 2014, by quarter

The number of issuers which use bonds listed on Catalyst as an effective source of financing has been increasing year by year. The debt securities market listed 188 issuers at the end of August 2014, including 131 companies, 22 co-operative banks, 20 local governments, 13 corporate banks, and 2 mortgage banks.

Figure 3. Number of bond issuers listed on Catalyst (non-Treasury bonds)

Source: WSE data as at the end of August 2014, by quarter

Many large companies have taken interest in bond issues over the five years. The biggest bond issues currently listed are those of BGK (PLN 29.93 billion), PKO Finance (PLN 5.46 billion), mBank Hipoteczny (PLN 2.8 billion), and PGNiG (PLN 2.5 billion).

Figure 4. Top 10 issues by value of bonds listed at the end of August 2014

Source: WSE data as at the end of August 2014
* Bonds listed in EUR

The number of transactions on Catalyst reached 8.93 thousand in July-August 2014. The biggest number of transactions were in corporate bonds (6.6 thousand) and bonds of corporate banks (1.6 thousand). The value of trading stood at PLN 246 million in the period.

Figure 5. Number of transactions on Catalyst (non-Treasury bonds)

Source: WSE data

The Exchange always strives to address investors' needs by improving the quality and safety of the debt market. Recent modifications include new regulations effective as of 1 September 2014 within the alternative trading system (ATS) on Catalyst. They have harmonised the Catalyst ATS regulations with the standards implemented last year in the reform of NewConnect.

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Warsaw Stock Exchange is the biggest securities exchange in Central and Eastern Europe. WSE organises trading on one of the most dynamically growing capital markets in Europe. WSE operates a regulated market of shares and derivative instruments and the alternative stock market NewConnect for growing companies. WSE is developing Catalyst, a market for issuers of corporate and municipal bonds, as well as commodity markets. Since 9 November 2010, WSE is a public company listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange.http://www.gpw.pl.

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