The head of the Vienna Stock Exchange: The listing of the Proprietatea Fund in Warsaw, would be a mistake

The listing of the Proprietatea Fund on the Warsaw Stock Exchange would be a mistake, and the company should be listed in Vienna instead, where it would have a lot more exposure to institutional investors and would be less exposed to currency risk, said Michael Buhl, the head of the Vienna Stock Exchange.

In the beginning of July, Franklin Templeton, the director of the Proprietatea Fund (FP), recommended the secondary listing of the Fund on the Warsaw Stock Exchange to shareholders, in the first quarter of 2012, by selling at most 10% of the shares. The exchanges that Templeton initially considered for the listing were those of London, Warsaw or Vienna.

"There is a recommendation to list the Proprietatea Fund in Warsaw. A bad decision. Why? Because listing it in Warsaw would only mean a new national listing, nothing more", Buhl said, quoted by Mediafax.

He added that placing the stock in Warsaw would mean that the trades would be performed in the local currency, the Polish zloty, which would increase the currency risk for the foreign investors.

"Do international investors want to trade in Zlotys? No, they don"t. This is the very reason why investors aren"t coming to the Bucharest Stock Exchange, because trading takes place in lei. There is a currency risk that investors aren"t willing to take. In Vienna, investors think in Euros, and the listings are also valued in Euros. From an accessibility point of view, it is obvious", Buhl continued.

In his opinion, another advantage of the Vienna exchange would be the increased visibility of the company, since the Vienna Stock Exchange, which is close in size to the Warsaw Stock Exchange, mostly lists large companies, whereas in Poland there are a lot of small companies.