Sunday, August 16, 2009

One Central-European Stock Market?

Corporate finance in Central Europe is dominated by bank lending. However, 94 IPOs on the Warsaw Stock Exchange last year, together with Prague and Ljubljana exchanges being recently acquired by Wiener Börse, point to interesting developments.
For this year, privatization of Warsaw Stock Exchange is planned. This way, the Vienna exchange could theoretically overtake its regional rival and form Europe's eight largest market for shares. Or the acquisition can happen the other way around, with the privatized Polish exchange acquiring Wiener Börse. Nevertheless, for now both exchanges deny the possibility of allowing one to buy the other.
Largest stock exchanges in Europe according to market capitalization are: Euronext, LSE, Spanish exchange, Deutsche Börse and the Swiss exchange.

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