Trading on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) in the first week after the launch of the BSE’s new trading platform Xetra, was predictably slow. On June 16, the day when Xetra went into operation, trading was predominantly dull, brokers told SeeNews corporate newswire.  Except for infrastructure company Holding Putishta and the country’s largest steel mill Kremikovtzi, all other shares did not provoke a big reaction from brokers, Svetozar Abrashev, a broker at First Financial Brokerage House told SeeNews.
Holding Putishta added 2.5 per cent to 1040 leva on a volume of 187 shares. Kremikovtzi was up 3.4 per cent to 2.7 leva with 30 180 shares changing hands.

Abrashev expected indices to move closer to the current levels in the upcoming week or two.

On June 17, the trend continued and trading on the BSE lacked any particular thrill. The Sofix index, which includes the 19 most liquid stocks on the BSE, lost 0.47 per cent to 1288.64 points and the broad BG40 index, which tracks the 40 most liquid companies on the bourse, inched 0.07 per cent down to 326.02. On that day, BSE’s turnover, excluding block and other pre-agreed deals, rose to 5.3 million leva from 2.64 million leva a day before. In general, all can be summarised by Abrashev’s words, “there is no particular trend these days, everybody is getting used to the new trading system and people are more cautious”.

In other news, Railroad Infrastructure Holding Company (RIHC) made headlines on June 17, saying that it would start bookbuilding for its initial public offering (IPO) on June 25.

The process will run for three days, head of United Bulgarian Bank’s equity financing division, Svetlana Koeva, told SeeNews. RIHC planned to raise its net profit to 36.2 million leva in 2014 from 3.7 million leva in 2007. The proceeds from the IPO would help the company fund its 65 million leva investment programme, under which it would upgrade its facilities until 2014. Trading in the company’s shares is expected to start in the middle of August.

RIHC is best-known for the fact that Vassil Bozhkov, once declared to the richest Bulgarian, owns an 80 per cent stake in the company, with businessman Orlin Hadjiankov holding the rest.

Bozhkov made the news again on June 17, when road construction company Holding Putishta, of which he is the majority owner, said it had the capacity to build the Trakiya highway and planned to propose a public-private partnership for its construction.