January 11 (SeeNews) - The Belgrade stock exchange is likely to witness an initial public offering (IPO) in 2017, its first since 1940, a local broker told SeeNews.
"We think we have matured and I am sure that we will do the first IPO in last 77 years," the head of trading at brokerage company CapitalOne, Vladimir Petrovic, told SeeNews in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday. He, however, would not elaborate.
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In an interview with Serbian magazine Magazin Biznis in October, the executive director of the Belgrade bourse, Sinisa Krneta, said that three companies were close to launching an IPO on the Belgrade bourse, as one of them had decided to go for it in May 2017.
The Belgrade stock exchange may see a small IPO by the end of 2017, the head of strategy and market research department at Eurobank Beograd, Ivan Radovic, said in a separate statement e-mailed to SeeNews on Tuesday. However, "my guess is that it will not happen," Radovic added.
The blue-chip BELEX15 index of the Belgrade Stock Exchange rose by 11.38% in 2016.
Set up in 1893, the Belgrade stock market ceased to exist in 1953, when it was formally abolished by the Yugoslav government. The 32 biggest banks of the former Yugoslavia re-established the bourse in 1989. In 2000, the stock market started the secondary trading of shares in privatised companies.