Mortal combat for bourse throne

The new candidate directors of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) will manage to beat the incumbents at Wednesday’s general meeting, vote calculations show. The ministry of finance, with 44% of the capital, holds the trump card. The big obstacle to the approval of the new board of directors is BSE’s fragmented shareholder structure, with only a few investors holding more than 1%.
Support
Big investment intermediaries will back up the change, since that will give them strong representation on the board of directors: the chairman of the Bulgarian Association of Licensed Investment Intermediaries, Lyubomir Boyadzhiev, is nominated for a seat. Commercial banks will give their support in the vote, as they are offered to keep a key member, Asen Yagodin. Three banks are among the big shareholders in BSE. UniCredit Bulbank holds 119,800 shares, Central Cooperative Bank and First Investment bank have 80,000 shares each. Their total interest is a touch below 5% and, added to the votes of intermediaries, secures the crucial 51%.
Upcoming
The likely election of new directors, however, will not be the end of changes at the BSE. The strong representation of investment intermediaries has made other market players seek place in BSE’s management. The board should include representatives of the issuers, the management board chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association, Vasil Velev, pointed out. The big institutional investors should also have their members, Bulgarian Association of Asset Management Companies chairman Stoyan Toshev said.

Finance