Almost two years after the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) Management Board signed an agreement with the Central Bank of Armenia (CBoA) to negotiate the acquisition of a majority stake representing 65% of the shares in the Armenia Securities Exchange (AMX), the deal was finally inked.
On 28 June 2022, during a ceremony in Yerevan, Marek Dietl, President of the Management Board of the GPW, signed a Share Purchase Agreement between GPW as the buyer and the CboA as the seller of a majority stake in the AMX representing 65.03% of shares. CBoA was represented by Martin Galstyan, Governor of the Central Bank of Armenia.
A Shareholders’ Agreement regarding the participation of the contracting parties in AMX was also signed in Yerevan between GPW and CBoA. The detailed development plan of AMX and the Armenian capital market is set out in the long-term development strategy of AMX, which was developed in co-operation with the EBRD and GPW. GPW intends to support the development of the capital market in Armenia by leveraging its 30 years of experience in building a capital market in Poland.
The joint-stock company AMX is the only stock exchange currently operating in Armenia (as the Armenia Securities Exchange from 2001 and as NASDAQ OMX Armenia since 2008). For more than 18 years, the exchange has been an organised securities market in Armenia, offering market professionals a fully automated electronic trading platform. The AMX Group’s core business is to organise trading in financial instruments and operate a depository and clearing house for trading in financial instruments in Armenia. The company is headquartered in Yerevan.
Currently listed instruments include equities, corporate and government bonds, currency, credit, as well as repos and swaps. AMX continues to work on introducing other organised markets. The Central Bank of Armenia is the supervisory and regulatory authority for the stock exchange and the Armenian capital market. AMX is a member of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) and the
International Association of CIS Exchanges. Since 2008, AMX is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia.
As a result of the transaction, GPW will become the majority shareholder of AMX holding a block of 967 shares, representing a 65.03% stake in the company’s total share capital. CBoA will hold 372 shares representing a 25.02% stake in the company’s share capital. The remaining 9.95% i.e. 148 shares are AMX’s Treasury shares. In addition, GPW will indirectly take control of the Central Depository of Armenia
(CDA), in which AMX currently holds a 100% stake.
