By Andrei Skvarsky
The Micex company is planning an initial public offering which will see the state-backed bourse relinquish its controlling share.
The company sets itself the deadline of the end of 2011 for taking over Micex, where the Russian Central Bank is the main shareholder. The Central Bank wants to keep a stake in the Micex company after the planned IPO but its interest is expected to drop to 10% from today’s 36%, Russian daily Kommersant said.
It is unclear when exactly the IPO would be held.
“After many years of debates there is a consensus between the branches of government that this process needs green light,” said Sergei Shvetsov, director of the Central Bank’s financial market operations department.
The financial markets regulator also backs the project. “We have discussed this matter with Micex and support the proposal as a way of setting up a vertically integrated stock exchange structure,” said Vladimir Milovidov, head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets. He described the planned IPO as “a step towards setting up a consolidated holding company and expanding the range of shareholders”.
Milovidov suggested that another Russian stock exchange, RTS, be involved in the IPO. As EmergingMarkets.me reported on July 1, there is a proposal to merge RTS with Micex as part of a plan to set up a central national depository, a project that lay dormant for several years before being set back in motion about a month ago.
A Micex company shareholders’ meeting this week confirmed Ruben Aganbegyan, an ex-president of Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital, as president of the exchange. Aganbegyan is the son of Abel Aganbegyan, one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s key economic advisers during perestroika.
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