An unnamed private sector company has confirmed plans for an IPO on the Bucharest stock exchange (BVB) after a series of listings in recent months, the bourse’s CEO Ludwik Sobolewski said on June 27. 

After a handful of listings of major state owner enterprises, mainly from the energy sector, in 2013 and 2014, the IPO market for private companies in Romania recently revived, with the listing of Medlife in December 2016 followed by the considerably larger IPO of Digi Communications in May.

Speaking at the International Investment Bank (IIB) business forum in Bucharest, Sobolewski did not disclose the name of the next company to hold an IPO on the exchange, but said it was “more or less the same category” as AAGES, which started trading on June 19. 

AAGES, which stands for the Association for the Application of Static Generators, designs and manufactures induction heating systems. The company started trading following a bid through which shareholders sold 15% of the company for RON5.49mn (€1.1mn).

“The IPO will be a small company. This shows the market is a good place for the medium-sized and large companies, but also for the small ones,” commented Sobolewski. 

The BVB is targeting a number of fast-growing, small and medium-sized companies through its Made in Romania initiative, which was launched by the BVB with the aim of selecting the most promising candidates for a capital market debut and funding advisory services to explore their options. The new private sector companies likely to come to market are participants in the programme, the exchange’s president Lucien Anghel told bne IntelliNews in an interview in May. 

Among the 15 finalists in the programme are several IT companies such as 2Performant Network, Softelligence, Smart Bill and Vola.ro, but they also include cosmetics company Ivatherm, vegetable oil producer Prutul and infrastructure and construction firm Electrogrup. All are seen by the BVB as potential IPO candidates. 

Meanwhile, Sobolewski also expressed the hope that private sector companies would start to turn to the exchange to raise capital as well as to provide an exit for their shareholders. 

“We didn’t have so far the increase in capital, not money flowing into the businesses; it was the shareholders selling their shares,” he commented. 

“Hopefully sooner rather than later will come a company that will treat the capital market as a source of financing.”