Exchange traded funds make the CEE region more accessible and attractive for international investors
23.03.2018
The region of Central and Eastern Europe offers attractive investment opportunities. The CEE countries continue their faster economic growth compared to the countries from Western Europe, while their stock markets are still underestimated, both historically and compared to the European and American markets. This was the conclusion of the yesterday's Expat International ETF Conference, which gathered 150 people from over 10 countries from the CEE region.
The conference had attendants ranging from directors of the stock exchanges, leading brokerage firms, financial analysts and key institutional investors from the CEE region, business leaders, investment professionals, media representatives, etc. The event was organized by Expat Asset Management – the largest wealth manager in Bulgaria. The company manages a family of 11 ETFs tracking the performance of all major equity indices in the CEE region.
The participants of the conference had the floor to share their insights on the development of the capital markets in their countries and the future of the ETF industry. The representatives of the regional stock exchanges gave their positive assessment of the Expat’s ETFs. They highlighted the need to promote the investment opportunities in the CEE countries, especially with the fact that the ETFs make it easy and cost-effective for international investors to take and liquidate CEE exposure in their portfolios, overcoming deficiencies such as lack of liquidity, lack of access, cross-border settlement issues, high execution costs, large spreads, and other technical factors typical for many of these markets.
‘Expat’s ETF products are unique market propositions providing liquid and diversified exposure in the CEE markets to international investors. The 11 funds are designed to become major highways for capital flows to and from the equity markets of the CEE countries. Trading those funds on the stock exchanges in the financial centres of London and Frankfurt aims provide international investors an easy and effective way to manage their exposure to specific countries in the region.’ – Nicola Yankov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Expat Asset Management, said in his presentation. Next step for Expat in H2 2018 is to create three more exchanged traded funds, tracking equity indices from the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), Yankov said.
Presentations from the Expat International ETF Conference:
Nicola Yankov, Expat – the ETF Operator in the CEE Region
Tobias Schafer, The ETF Segment of Deutsche Börse
Sándor Szalai, Keler, Post Trade Business Opportunities in the Bulgarian Local Capital Market