OMX’s Baltic exchanges launch The Baltic Market Awards

15.03.2006 VLN

Today OMX’s exchanges in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius launch The Baltic Market Awards. The annual contest will identify and rank the best Baltic market participants. The contest runs during 2006 and assesses all listed Main and I-list Baltic companies’ investor relations and member trading activities. The winners are awarded at a prize ceremony held at the end of the year.

Johan Rudén, President of the Baltic Market business unit at OMX, notes: “The Baltic Market Awards project will be a good encouragement for Baltic listed companies to have top international disclosure practices. This will, with the many excellent companies in the Baltic market, undeniably increase its visibility and trust in the eyes of investors. The companies will have the opportunity to compare themselves with their peers, in order to measure against the best, and to improve over time.”

The mission of The Baltic Market Awards, apart from identifying the best Baltic market participants, is to increase listed companies’ awareness of the significance of disclosure quality, good investor relations and corporate governance practices. In particular, the Awards will identify best practice in organizing websites, drafting reports and preparing corporate disclosures. Though only the best will be singled out and awarded, all companies involved will benefit.

The main award will be for “The Best Investor Relations in the Baltic countries”. Other awards are: “The Best Investor Relations Among Small Cap” (market capitalization under EUR 50 million), “The Best Company” (of each exchange – Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius), The Best Investor Relations Web” and, starting first next year “The Most Visible Improvement Over The Year”.

The companies will be evaluated and build their scoring in five criteria groups:

• annual report, 
• interim reports, 
• ongoing corporate disclosures, 
• company web-page, 
• investor evaluation.

Each individual criteria is defined and measured. All Baltic Main list and Baltic I-list companies are included in the project; there is no need to apply specifically. No additional input will be asked from the companies: public information will be the sole source of information used in the analysis and evaluation. The disclosure items subject to evaluation will be the ones released between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006. Any breaches of disclosure rules during the period will reduce the total score.

The Baltic stock exchange members will be evaluated for a separate award. The main criteria for members’ assessment will be the trading activity in equities as well as fixed income instruments, and compliance with trading and settlement rules.

The Baltic Market Awards Evaluation Committee is responsible for development of the criteria and for approval of the results. The members of the Committee represent media (Bonnier Business Press), academic circles, investors and the stock exchanges. The Committee is chaired by Geoffrey Mazullo (Partnership for Financial Stability Program), an independent representative. The company analysis will be done by students from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, who will receive training prior to commencing the analysis and be supervised by appropriate staff of each stock exchange. The students will also benefit from applying the theoretical knowledge acquired during their studies into practice.