Slovakian government to privatise exchange

The Slovakian government is planning to privatize the Bratislava Stock Exchange in 2006.

The Vienna stock exchange is already holding discussions with Slovakian officials concerning the purchase of the Bratislava exchange as a step in its plan to consolidate the small stock exchanges in central Europe.

In consortium with Austrian banks, the Vienna exchange already has purchased, in 2004, 68.5 percent of the Budapest stock exchange.

Before the sale, the finance ministry in Slovakia plans to integrate the central securities depository into the exchange, giving a two-thirds ownership of the exchange to the government. The government will then either buy out minority stockholders or those stockholders will offer their shares for sale alongside the government’s shares in the first half of 2006.

The Bratislava exchange is the weakest of the four new central European members of the European Union. In 2004, it’s daily trade amounted to only around €2.25 million. Its volume in the first quarter of this year is down 95 percent from that of the first quarter last year, and it has never had an initial public offering.

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