Belgrade Shares Mostly Drop as Foreign Investors Close Positions

The market jumped some four to five percent in the morning but then slowly retreated, the head of Belgrade-based Confidence brokerage, Igor Pacanoski, told SeeNews.

“There was quite a big pressure by the foreign institutional investors which were exiting the market,” Pacanoski added.

The BELEX15 index on Tuesday slipped 0.75% to 688.86 points after plunging 6.77% on Monday.

The composite BELEXline index shed 0.38% to 1,452.92 points, while the joint SRX index of the bourses in Belgrade and Vienna rose 1.18% to 337.94.

“The turnover wasn’t very big today as 64 million dinars of it was in government bonds," the broker said. “AIK Banka was traded a lot.”

Total turnover on the BELEX slid to 160 million dinars ($2.3 million/1.9 million euro) from 169 million dinars on Monday.

Blue-chip AIK Banka lost 2.75% to 2,544 dinars on Tuesday in 50 million dinars of turnover, the highest for the day.

Earlier on Tuesday the stock exchange said it will suspend from trading the shares of blue-chip Metals Banka as of Wednesday in connection with a downgrade of the bank from the official to the unofficial segment of the bourse.  The bourse said Metals Banka had failed to meet its obligations for provision of information to the stock exchange.

Last week the country’s central bank, NBS, suspended Metals Banka's management and appointed temporary managers, Metals Banka said but did not elaborate.

“We don’t know what is going on within the bank and there is no explanation. But it should be something significant if the central bank has taken such measures,” Pacanoski said.  “We are simply waiting for some information from a reliable source. The worst thing are these speculations.”

Metals Banka's shares fell because investors are frightened, Pacanoski said. “When a temporary management is appointed, people are scared," he said, adding that the lack of information fuels fears. In late August Metals Banka became the fourth company to be listed on the top tier of the Belgrade stock exchange. The bank’s share price was 29,600 dinars  back then.

On Tuesday, Metals Banka's stock dropped 7.97% to close at 7,776 dinars.

According to Pacanoski, the bank's shares should have been suspsended from trading earlier. He, however, said he expects that their price will go up once they resume trading and after the central bank checks if there have been any irregularities.

“The bank’s capital adequacy is not threatened, the bank operates well,” he said. “It has a good network. It could easily become a takeover target soon – and at this price, it will be a present really.”

To trade on the BELEX official market a company needs to publish financial reports quarterly and to have a capital of at least 10 million euro, and at least 25% of its equity capital should be owned by minority shareholders.

(1 euro = 85.0994 dinars)