Baltic Listed Companies with the Best Investor Relations to be Established

14.07.2011 RIG

Riga, July 14, 2011 – This week the Baltic Market Awards project will be launched, with a team of international experts to evaluate the quality of investor relations in Baltic listed companies. The Baltic Market Awards project is organized by NASDAQ OMX stock exchanges in the Baltic countries already for the sixth year.  

The objective of the Baltic Market Awards is to single out the best investor relations in the Baltics. Within the framework of the project, the Baltic listed companies are evaluated by international experts in the field of investor relations and corporate governance; moreover, the project is free of charge for the companies. The companies are analyzed and evaluated according to more than 100 specific criteria; securities analysts also issue an opinion about each individual company. Subsequently, specialists from the Baltic stock exchanges provide individual practical advice to the companies how to enhance their investor relations.

Last year the Lithuanian telecom company TEO LT was recognized to have the best investor relations in the Baltics and received the main award of the Baltic Market Awards. Grindeks was awarded for the best investor relations in Riga stock exchange, Tallina Vesi in Tallinn stock exchange, and TEO LT in Vilnius stock exchange.  

„It is important to recognize that enhanced quality of investor relations may bring along major improvements in the market price of the company stock: investors are willing to pay more for a company that is understandable to them”, points out Maija Gutke, the project coordinator for the Baltic markets.

The quality of investor relations is important for the entire securities market: the better the quality of the information disclosed by the companies to investors and market participants about the company itself, its financial performance and the key events, the more transparent and efficient the securities market, thus, more attractive to investors.  

This will be the sixth consecutive year for the Baltic Market Awards project. Prior to launching it, the stock exchanges in the Baltic countries carried out a research about the project accomplishments in the five previous years and about the investor relation trends in the Baltic markets.  

• Since the launch of the project in 2006, the quality of investor relations in the Baltic listed companies has improved by 41%. As to corporate governance, information disclosure and investor relations in listed companies, they are well ahead all other companies, both private and state-owned.  
• During the past five years, the quality of financial statements of Baltic listed companies has improved by 48%, and the quality of on-line investor relations by 73%.  
• Overall, small-cap companies tend to have investor relations of slightly inferior quality than large-cap companies; nevertheless, also these companies are improving. Average rates have improved by 65% during the past years. Last year the gap between the rates for large-cap and small-cap companies was, on average, a mere 4%, down from the 18% at the launch of the project. 

„The investor relations quality in the Baltic countries is comparatively high and improving with each year. This happens not only owing to the Baltic Market Awards project where we work individually with each company, but because the overall investment culture in the Baltics is improving, the company management awareness about the importance of investor relations is increasing, and investors also are becoming more demanding. As a matter of fact, this is a normal evolution of a securities market and we are satisfied that our efforts are delivering measurable results”, points out Maija Gutke, the project coordinator for the Baltic markets.

In 2011, altogether 55 Baltic listed companies will be subject to evaluation under the Baltic Market Awards project: all NASDAQ OMX Baltic Official list companies, Secondary list companies with average market cap over EUR 10 million, as well as the companies that have enrolled the project on their own initiative. The best investor relation companies will be announced early next year.  

More about Baltic Market Awards: http://www.nasdaqbaltic.com/lv/birzas-informacija/par-mums/birzas-balvas/baltic-market-awards-2/

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Additional information: 

Anda Zvigule
NASDAQ OMX Riga
Corporate communications specialist 
+37167212431
anda.zvigule@nasdaqomx.com