December 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian stock indices closed mostly down on Saturday in a session featuring the long-awaited debut of road construction company Trace Group Hold, brokers said.
Shares in Trace opened on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) at 1,000 levs well above 110.50 levs in its initial public offering (IPO). After the strong start the price fell as low as 276 levs. Most of the deals in the second half of the session were struck at levels over 300 levs. The stock closed at 312 levs.
“It was expected that Trace would start at levels well above the price in the public offering,” Borislav Nikov of Status Capital told SeeNews.
He said the price around 300 levs was “justifiable only on the basis of supply and demand.”
“From a fundamental point of view, things look differently when Trace is compared with its peer on the BSE - Holding Roads,” Nikov said, adding that at the current prices the two companies have almost the same market capitalisation, despite the higher sales, bigger assets and better results of Holding Roads.
Shares in Holding Roads added 2.7% to 38,000 levs on Saturday. The bourse in Sofia was open on Saturday as December 31, Monday, is a market and public holiday.
BSE’s turnover, excluding block trading and other pre-agreed deals, nearly doubled to 18.2 million levs ($13.4 million/9.3 million euro) from Friday with trade in Trace accounting for almost half of the Saturday’s volumes.
The blue-chip SOFIX index, which includes the 16 most liquid stocks on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, gained 0.45% to 1,716.20 points, while the broad BG 40 index fell 1.63% to 504.76 points. The bourse's BG-REIT index, which tracks the performance of real estate investment trust shares, fell 1.25% to 99.00 points and the BG TotalReturn30 (BG TR30) index, in which companies with a free float of at least 10% have equal weight, lost 1.08% to 1,070.74 points.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)