Profile of the MICEX Stock Exchange

The MICEX Stock Exchange, Russia’s leading stock exchange, is a member of the MICEX Group. Its proportion on the Russian on-exchange share market is over 80% (about 60%, taking into account the OTC segment). The MICEX Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in the CIS, Eastern and Central Europe. It is among the world’s top 30 stock exchanges, and its proportion in the volume of on-exchange trading in Russian assets, including depositary receipts for shares in Russian companies, is about 70%. The MICEX Stock Exchange is the center of the formation of liquidity for Russian securities and the main market for international investments in shares and bonds of Russian companies.

In 2009, the total volume of trading on the MICEX Stock Exchange amounted to 41 trillion rubles (1,304 billion USD). Trading in shares (including repos) accounted for 26 trillion rubles (836 billion USD). In 2009, the volume of secondary trading in securities increased by 11% over the previous year and reached 17 trillion rubles (556 billion USD). The MICEX Stock Exchange organizes daily trading in securities of 1300 about 700 Russian issuers, including shares in more than 230 companies. Among these are such major issuers as Sberbank, Gazprom, Rostelecom, LUKoil, Rosneft, Norilsk Nickel, VTB Bank, Surgutneftegaz, Tatneft, RusHydro and others with a total capitalization of about 20 trillion rubles (about 750 billion USD).

Participants in trading on the MICEX Stock Exchange are more than 650 organizations – professional participants in the securities market. Their clients are about 700 thousand investors, both legal entities and individuals. Individual investors account for 53% in the total volume of trading in shares. Trading on the Exchange is held electronically on the basis of an up-to-date trading system connected to regional exchanges and remote terminals.

The MICEX Stock Exchange provides unique opportunities for placement and trading in bonds. In 2009, 162 bond issues of 98 issuers were placed on the Exchange. The volume of placement of bonds reached almost 1 trillion rubles (almost 30 billion USD), an all-time record for this market on the MICEX SE. The Exchange took measures to minimize defaults in the bond market by reforming the system of listing of bonds and introducing more stringent requirements for bond issuers compared with the current legislation. Today, more than 700 issues of regional and corporate bonds and commercial papers of over 420 issuers are traded on the MICEX Stock Exchange. Their total nominal value is 2.7 trillion rubles (84 USD).

The MICEX Stock Exchange provides a wide range of services to issuers, including bringing existing shares to the exchange, listing and initial offering (IPO). In 2009, the Exchange launched a new project, the Innovations and Investments Market (IIM), which was created on the basis of the Sector for Innovation and Growth Companies. The main goal of this project is to promote investments in high-tech companies and small- and mid-cap enterprises. The first issuer in the Sector was a biotechnology company Human Stem Cells Institute. The Market for Innovations and Investments is comprised of three segments intended for companies with different degrees of maturity and capitalization and investor groups: the IGC Sector, the private placements sector and the placement and trading sector for non-public companies.

The main indicator of the Russian stock market is the MICEX Index, calculated since 1997. It is comprised of 30 most liquid stocks of the largest and most rapidly developing Russian companies, representing the main sectors of the country’s economy. The family of the MICEX SE’s stock market indices includes a number of sectoral indices (MICEX O&G, MICEX PWR, MICEX TLC, MICEX M&M, MICEX MNF, MICEX FNL, MICEX CGS, MICEX CHM) and capitalization indices (MICEX LC, MICEX MC, MICEX SC). The indicators of the bond market are the index of municipal bonds, MICEX MBI, and the index of corporate bonds, MICEX CBI.
The MICEX Stock Exchange works on improving the quality of services offered to participants in the Russian securities market and issuers, thus contributing to the development of a competitive financial market in Russia and the creation of an international financial center in Moscow.