YEREVAN, November 1. /ARKA/.

The capitalization of the Armenian Stock Exchange (AMX) as of October 31, 2024, amounted to $872.36 million, reported AMX Executive Director Hayk Yeganyan in response to a question from the ARKA news agency.

"The market capitalization (as of the end of 2023) amounted to approximately $668 million, which is a decent indicator for the capital market of a developing country like Armenia," he said at the AMX awards ceremony.

Yeganyan reported that there is a good trend in the equity segment: at least one IPO is carried out each year, and the number of companies that have gone public has now reached 13.

In this regard, the exchange director added that more new securities are needed to meet the demands of the secondary market.

"This is already the job of investment banks – they have to convince the issuers." In Armenia, there are approximately 30 potential issuers who might be interested in emissions," he explained.

Speaking about the government bond market, Yeganyan noted that primary placements increased from $460 million in 2018 to $1.5 billion in 2023.

At the same time, the volume of government bond trading on the secondary market (in 2023 – ed.) amounted to approximately $228 million (compared to $144 million in 2018 – ed.).

"This is a very important indicator, especially for attracting foreign investors," he said.

Regarding the corporate bond market, Yeganyan noted that despite some stagnation in 2020, in 2023 their volume amounted to $114.8 million, compared to $76.7 million in 2018, and the number of bonds increased from 69 to 111.

The exchange director also presented some financial indicators of AMX for the year 2023 compared to 2018. Thus, the exchange's capital grew from $1.2 million to $5 million, operating expenses from $1.5 million to $4.6 million, and net profit from $130,000 to $1.2 million.

About the Armenian Stock Exchange

AMX is the only functioning stock exchange in Armenia and the sole shareholder of the country's Central Depository. The Warsaw Stock Exchange acquired 65.03% of the shares of the Armenian Stock Exchange for approximately $2.2 million in June 2022. 25.02% belongs to the Central Bank of Armenia, the remaining 9.95% are owned by AMX. -0-