The capital market in Romania is going through one of the best periods in history and has recorded a streak of successive all-time highs in July and in the first 7 months of this year. The offer of Hidroelectrica (H2O), a leader in electricity production and the main provider of technological services needed in the National Energy System, which was held at the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) between June 23 and July 4, 2023, ended successfully and became the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever made on the Romanian stock market. Hidrolectrica’s IPO attracted a total of RON 9.28 billion (about EUR 1.9 billion EUR or USD 2.1 billion) for 89.7 million shares representing 19.94% of the total number of shares and became the

largest IPO in Europe and the third largest in the world considering the IPOs so far this year. Hidroelectrica debuted on July 12th on the BVB’s Regulated Market and is the largest Romanian company listed on the BVB in terms of market capitalization.

The number of investors in the Romanian capital market continued to grow and reached almost 160,000 investors at the end of the first semester of 2023, according to data from the Investor Compensation Fund (FCI). By comparison, in 2019 there were almost 54,000 investors. This represents a 200% increase over the past five years. Moreover, once the threshold of 150,000 investors was exceeded, the capital market in Romania reached a new all-time high.

”The capital market in Romania is going through one of the best periods in history and we believe that recent developments confirm that the market is developing in the right direction. The value of Romanian companies listed on the BVB exceeded RON 200 billion, the equivalent of over EUR 40 billion, which is an all-time high for the capital market. The Hidroelectrica offer was the largest in Europe and the third in the world so far this year, and the Hidroelectrica phenomenon brought dozens of thousands of Romanians closer to the stock market and demonstrated that Romanians have an appetite for investment, which is encouraging for Romanian companies to get listed on the local stock exchange. More than that, we believe that beyond current records, which can be broken at any time, it is important to keep in mind the overall picture and the essential contribution that the stock exchange institution has in the development of Romania: 170 rounds of financing worth over EUR 10 billion were rolled out in the last 5 years alone through the capital market,” said Radu Hanga, President of the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

”Hidroelectrica’s IPO achieved a performance that was difficult for analysts to predict: it moved 2% of the total types of deposits, expressed in all types of currencies, that the population held in banks after the total subscriptions on the retail tranche reached RON 6.3 billion. This indicator shows what potential the capital market has to attract from the savings of the population in case of significant offers. We believe Hidroelectrica is the best testimonial to persuade more and more entrepreneurs to start or resume the listing process because the market has shown that it has an appetite for investments in solid businesses. Romania has become an attractive center for both local and international capital flows as the degree of market development has increased. We are now the third capital market in the region in terms of capitalization and aim to become the third market in the region in terms of liquidity in the medium term as well. Precisely to achieve this desired goal, the implementation of the Central Counterparty project is of utmost importance,” said Adrian Tănase, CEO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

Florin Cepraga, Senior PR Specialist, Bucharest Stock Exchange

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