Radu Hanga, BVB President:

• The Romanian capital market is going through one of the best periods in history and we believe that recent developments confirm that the market is developing in the right direction. The value of Romanian companies listed on the BSE exceeded 200 billion lei, the equivalent of over 40 billion euros, which is a first for the capital market.
• The Hidroelectrica offer was the largest in Europe and the third in the world so far this year, and the Hidroelectrica phenomenon brought tens of thousands of Romanians closer to the stock market and demonstrated that Romanians have an appetite for investments, which is encouraging for companies Romanians to become companies listed on the local stock exchange. More than that, we believe that beyond the current records, which can be broken at any time, it is important to keep in mind the overall picture and the essential contribution that the stock exchange institution has in the development of Romania: 170 financing rounds worth over 10 billion euros have been developed only in the last 5 years through the capital market.

Adrian Tanase, BVB CEO:

• The Hidroelectrica offer achieved a performance that was difficult to foresee by analysts: it moved 2% of the total of all types of deposits, expressed in all types of currencies, that the population held in banks after the total subscriptions on the retail tranche reached 6, 3 billion lei. This indicator shows us the potential of the capital market to attract from the savings of the population in case of significant offers.
• We believe that the example of Hidroelectrica is the best testimony to determine more and more entrepreneurs to start or resume the listing process because the market has demonstrated that it has an appetite for investments in solid businesses. Romania has become an attractive center for both local and international capital flows as the degree of market development has increased. We are now the third capital market in the region in terms of capitalization and we aim to become the third market in the region in terms of liquidity in the medium term. Precisely in order to achieve this desired, the implementation of the Central Counterparty project is essential.

The capital market in Romania is going through one of the best periods in history and recorded a series of successive records in July as well as in the first 7 months of this year. The Hidroelectrica Offer (H2O), a leader in electricity production and the main provider of technological services needed in the National Energy System, was held at the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) between June 23 and July 4, 2023, and was successfully concluded and became the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever made on the Romanian stock market. Hidrolectrica’s IPO attracted a total of 9.28 billion RON (about 1.9 billion EUR or 2.1 billion USD) for 89.7 million shares representing 19, 94% of the total number of shares and became the largest offer in Europe and the third largest in the world, taking into account the IPOs made so far this year. Hidroelectrica debuted on July 12, 2023 on the BVB Regulated Market and is the largest Romanian company listed on the BVB in terms of capitalization.

The number of investors on the capital market in Romania continued to grow and reached almost 160,000 investors at the end of the first semester of 2023, according to data from the Investor Compensation Fund (FCI). By comparison, in 2019 there were almost 54,000 investors. This means a 200% increase achieved in the last five years. Moreover, once the threshold of 150,000 investors was exceeded, the capital market in Romania reached a new historical maximum. The evolution of this indicator can be followed in Graph 1.

Radu Hanga, President of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, said:“The Romanian capital market is going through one of the best periods in history and we believe that recent developments confirm that the market is developing in the right direction. The market value of Romanian companies listed on the BSE exceeded 200 billion lei, the equivalent of over 40 billion euros, which is a first for the capital market. The Hidroelectrica offer was the largest in Europe and the third in the world so far this year, and the Hidroelectrica phenomenon brought tens of thousands of Romanians closer to the stock market and demonstrated that Romanians have an appetite for investments, which is encouraging for companies Romanians to become companies listed on the local stock exchange. More than that, we believe that beyond the current records, which can be broken at any time,

Adrian Tanase, General Director of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, said:“The Hidroelectrica offer achieved a performance that was difficult to predict by analysts: it moved 2% of the total of all types of deposits, expressed in all types of currencies, that the population held in banks after the total subscriptions on the retail tranche reached 6 .3 billion lei. This indicator shows us the potential of the capital market to attract from the savings of the population in case of significant offers. We believe that the example of Hidroelectrica is the best testimony to determine more and more entrepreneurs to start or resume the listing process because the market has demonstrated that it has an appetite for investments in solid businesses. Romania has become an attractive center for both local and international capital flows as the degree of market development has increased. We are now the third capital market in the region in terms of capitalization and we aim to become the third market in the region in terms of liquidity in the medium term. Precisely in order to achieve this desired, the implementation of the Central Counterparty project is essential.”

The value of the listings made at the Bucharest Stock Exchange in the first 7 months of this year stood at EUR 4.4 billion, thus surpassing the entire year 2021, which held the previous record, when the value of all instruments listed at the BVB in that year was around 4 billions of euros. Also in the first 7 months of this year, a new record was registered in the share segment on the Regulated Market in terms of the total transaction value, including offers. More precisely, this value reached 16.4 billion RON, the previous record of 13.8 billion RON dating from 2007. Also at the level of liquidity, but in terms of the highest daily value traded in a single day on the segment of shares, not including offers, was recorded on July 12, with transactions that totaled 821.3 million RON. In the month of July, the highest average daily trading value was recorded for all types of instruments on the Regulated Market, without offers: 702.48 million RON. In addition, July 2023 was the month in which the most monthly transactions were carried out at the BVB level, respectively 274,717 transactions.

Hidroelectrica’s IPO also recorded a series of records for retail investors. Thus, during the offer, the highest amount subscribed by retail investors to an IPO at BVB was registered: 6.3 billion RON at the Hidroelectrica IPO. Also within the H2O offer, the highest value of transactions resulting from an offer in the retail segment was recorded: 1.82 billion RON, as well as the highest number of orders subscribed in the retail segment at an IPO in Romania: 51,865 orders. After H2O entered trading at the BSE, on July 12 another record was set: the most transactions made in one day on the shares segment, the Regulated Market and the Multilateral Trading System, without offers: 23,358 transactions.

The Romanian capital market grew by 17.5% in the first seven months of this year, according to the BET-TR index, which also includes dividends. At the end of the trading session on July 31, BET-TR displayed a level of 26,647 points, and the historical maximum reached since its establishment, 11 years ago, was recorded on July 20, 2023, when BET-TR reached 26,765 points. Also during this time, BET-NG, the index of energy and utility companies, had an increase of 16.9%.

A new record was registered regarding the capitalization of Romanian companies and the highest recorded value for this indicator was recorded on July 20, 2023. On that date, the market value of all Romanian companies listed on the BSE reached a level of 202.1 billion RON, equivalent to EUR 40.9 billion.