Page 89 - RusRPTMay20

8.3.3 ​ ECM news
The number of retail trading accounts on​ ​Moscow Exchange​ (MOEX) doubled in March compared with the average number opened in 2019 and investors invested over $500mn into Russian stocks​, the exchange said on April 6 as cited by Reuters. The Russian stock market has sold off heavily in the last month, losing about 34% of its value YTD after a very strong opening in the first two months of the year. The crisis-hardened Russian investors are hoping to benefit from the eventual rebound after having lived through at least four major crises since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, namely in 1998, 2004, 2008, 2014 and now, with multiple smaller crises in between. A large number of Russians have accounts at MOEX, although up to three quarters of them area inactive. The exchange said the number of retail investor accounts rose 320,000 in March compared with a monthly average increase of 159,000 last year while the number who made a transaction came to 606,700, well above the 2019 monthly average of 244,900. According to the MOEX’s monthly report, private investors ploughed RUB43.7bn rubles ($573mn) into Russian stocks on the platform in March, twice as much as the maximum volume of purchases for any month in 2019, reports Reuters. MOEX said the number of individuals with a brokerage account on the exchange had reached 4.57mn by the start of April.
The CEO of Russian diamond major ​Alrosa​, Sergei Ivanov, has sold half of his stake in the company​, in order to support the Republic of Yakutia where most of the company's operations are located to fight the epidemic of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the company said on April 3. Ivanov raised RUB18.5mn ($240,000) and cut his stake to 0.00415% from 0.0083%, to allocate the funds raised to the procurement of medicine, equipment and protective gear for the Mirninsky District of Yakutia. The Federal State Property Management Agency owns 33.02% of Alrosa, the Republic of Yakutia has 25% plus one share, regions of Yakutia where the company operates own a total of 8%, and free-float is around 34%.
89​ RUSSIA Country Report​ May 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com