Page 21 - bne monthly magazine October 2022

bne October 2022 Companies & Markets I 21
"This decision is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, which we will obtain. We also explored other markets and I am happy to say that we are quite confident that the Bucharest Stock Exchange suits us best,” Giorgi Shagidze, CEO of MAIB bank told Ziarul Financiar daily on September 7.
Shagidze, a former executive at Georgia’s TBC Bank, was selected to head the bank in early 2021 with an eye to using his experiencing in listing the Georgian bank.
Shagidze has over 25 years of experience in the financial and banking sectors, most recently as chief financial officer and chief operating officer at TBC Bank. During his 10 years in the post, TBC Bank increased its assets more than eightfold, becoming the largest bank in Georgia. In 2014, TBC launched its IPO on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), attracting foreign institutional and retail investors. TBC shares are included in the FTSE 250 index with a current market capitalisation of approximately $1bn.
bne:FX
The EBRD and two private equity investment funds that bought into the bank in 2018 in what was seen as an important step towards cleaning up the largest bank in a sector plagued by corruption scandals.
Since 2018 its largest shareholder has been HEIM Partners Ltd, a UK-registered company representing the international investor consortium of the EBRD and private equity investors Invalda INVL and Horizon Capital, which used
to be run by former Ukrainian finance minister Natalie Jaresko.
MAIB is already listed on the local exchange in Chisinau, but the exchange lacks liquidity which prompted its owners to consider an international listing.
Four years ago, Purcari Wineries became the first Moldovan company to list on the Bucharest bourse, helping to fund its international expansion.
Poland’s central bank winds down 12-month
tightening campaign with 25bp rise Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
The National Bank of Poland (NBP) increased its reference rate by only 25bp to 6.75% on September 7, as fears of recession begin to trump those of inflation.
The small scale of the hike, which was in line with market expectations, marks a possible end to the NBP’s year-long tightening campaign, aiming at bringing unbridled inflation under control via putting brakes on economic activity.
The real risk of recession seems to have been occupying the minds of policymakers more than inflation recently after growth halved in y/y terms in Q2, with the outlook now tilted increasingly towards at least a technical recession, analysts say.
“There was no new guidance in the communications in
terms of the central bank’s next move, but with policymakers seemingly more concerned about the deteriorating economic outlook than sky-high inflation, we think this marks the
end of the tightening cycle,” Capital Economics said in a comment.
For its part, the NBP said that further decisions would “depend on incoming information regarding perspectives for inflation and economic activity, including the impact of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine on the Polish economy.”
The ongoing economic slowdown could eventually bring inflation down, albeit incrementally, over the next several months. There already are signs of core inflationary pressures easing, even as food and energy prices still pushed headline inflation up to 16.1% y/y in August.
That said, some analysts point to a rare set of circumstances – Russia’s war in Ukraine being a fundamental one – that could upend any projections as to inflation trajectory.
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