STA, 21 May 2019 - The favourable economic situation in Slovenia reflected in the domestic capital market last year, with total market capitalisation of the financial instruments listed on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE) increasing by more than 12% compared to 2017, according to a report by the Securities Market Agency (ATVP).
The ATVP noted in the report, published on Tuesday, that total market capitalisation of the financial instruments listed on the LJSE stood at EUR 33.37 billion at the end of the year.
The bulk of this were bonds (EUR 27.02 billion), while total market capitalisation of all shares combined was EUR 6.35 billion.
The report adds that the volume of transactions had meanwhile dropped by 2.91% to EUR 337.32 million. The value of the SBI TOP blue chip index was also down somewhat, by 0.18% to 805.06 points.
The number of securities listed in Ljubljana continued to drop last year, also due to takeovers, whose number was unusually high in 2018, with the agency recording a total of 15 successful and completed acquisitions.
The number of securities on the LJSE stood at 41 at the end of the year, including two new ones - shares of the NLB bank and bonds of power producer Gen-I.
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Seven shares and one bond were delisted from the LJSE last year, including the stock of the household appliances maker Gorenje, which was acquired last spring by China's Hisense, which bought out small shareholders in the autumn.
Issuers are withdrawing from the market, for example after ownership consolidation, while new ones rarely decide to enter the Slovenian capital market, the ATVP commented in the report.
In order to raise awareness of Slovenian issuers about the importance of the capital market, the agency said it had implemented last year a pilot programme of support for listing of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Last year, investors could pick among 100 mutual funds in Slovenia, which were managed by six asset management firms, one fewer than in 2017, as the consolidation of the market in this field continued, the agency said.
Their combined assets amounted to EUR 2.48 billion at the end of last year, EUR 187 million less than at the end of 2017. The ATVP attributes this largely to the negative trends at international stock exchanges at the end of 2018.
The agency noted regretfully that the share of securities of domestic issuers in the portfolios of mutual funds had continued to drop last year.
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