Jun 2010 Financial News

Stock Exchange launches corporate bond market

Jun 08, 2010

The Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) yesterday launched its corporate bond market with the listing of three Scotiabank investment instruments valued at a total of $1 billion.

The corporate bonds are valued at $500 million, $300 million and $200 million.

The objective of the corporate bond market is to offer new opportunities to help investors diversify their portfolios, the Exchange said yesterday.

Speaking at the launch of the bond market at the Exchange at Nicholas Tower, Port of Spain, TTSE general manager Wain Iton said that transactions in the corporate bond market would take place on the TTSE’s electronic trading platform and will provide an opportunity for faster order executions.

The launch of the corporate bonds follows that of a number of government bonds.

At present, 16 government bonds are listed on the exchange.

Iton said that in 2009, activity listed in the government bond market was $738.7 million.

For this year the figure now stands at about $1.2 billion.

There are currently 38 local and regional companies listed on the Exchange and it is looking at different ways to attract new investments, Iton said.

He said that the TTSE would like to meet with the new government to encourage the divestment of State enterprises through the bonds market.

’We think there are opportunities for the viable State enterprises to be divested through the market place. We’re not saying that these State enterprises must be sold 100 per cent to the public. We’re asking for about 25 to 30 per cent of the issued share capital to be placed on the market,’ he said.

These state enterprises could then take their place alongside the banks on the TTSE, he said.

Generally speaking, he said that the equities market in 2010 performed reasonably well but volumes were not as robust.


Source:
Miranda La Rose
Trinidad Express
Saturday, June 5th 2010

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/nart?id=161688692&weba=NWSBusiness