November 7 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's financial regulator on Wednesday gave the gren light to local asset manager Karoll Capital Management to set up a moderate-to-high risk mutual fund that will invest in stocks in Central and Eastern Europe.
The new Advance IPO Fund will invest in shares of Central and Eastern European companies to be admitted for trading on an official stock exchange or other regulated market no later than within a year of their issue, the Financial Supervision Commission said in a statement.
The investment focus of the fund will be the initial public offerings (IPOs) and listing of companies on stock markets, as well as privatisation deals on the stock markets, Karoll said in a separate statement.
The mutual fund will initially invest in companies in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece and Kazakhstan. Later, it will also invest in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe such as Macedonia, Montenegro and countries of the the former Soviet Union.
Karoll Capital Management is part of Bulgarian financial group Karoll (www.karoll.net), which also comprises a brokerage company, a financial and investment company, a financial house and an insurance and pension assurance intermediary. Karoll manages two other mutual funds in Bulgaria - Advance Invest focusing on EU newcomers Bulgaria and Romania, and Advance Eastern Europe, which invests in Russia, Ukraine, Croatia and Serbia.
Bulgaria has some 25 asset management companies managing more than 40 mutual funds.