Emporium LLC from Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM group has become the owner of 8.856607% of shares of PFTS, Ukraine’s largest stock exchange by trading volume (both in Kiev), on the eve of its announced plans to increase its authorized capital by 93.7%.
According to PFTS’ message in the NSCM disclosure system, the exchange received information about the new shareholder on February 2.
It is specified that Emporium is owned by Crossgold Limited, which, in turn, is owned by SCM Financial Overseas Limited, 100% owned by Akhmetov
There is no information about the seller of these shares yet.
As reported, PFTS earlier announced plans to consider at the extraordinary remote shareholders’ meeting on February 6 an increase in the authorized capital (AC) from UAH 32.01 million to UAH 62.01 million, or by 93.7%, through the placement of an additional 30 thousand shares with a par value of UAH 1 thousand through additional contributions without making a public offering.
Preliminarily, the list of persons among whom the shares of the additional issue will be placed is limited to the existing shareholders, however, the meeting may expand it by other investors intending to purchase the shares.
The largest shareholder of PFTS since the beginning of 2022 is Bohai Commodity Exchange (BOCE Co. Limited, Hong Kong) with 49.9% of shares. According to the SEC disclosure system, there were no other shareholders with a stake of more than 5% at the end of the third quarter of 2023.
At the same time, Prime Holding LLC in mid-October 2023 announced its intention to acquire 2,835 shares of the exchange, which is 8.8566% of its authorized capital.
PFTS did not publish financial statements after 9 months of 2021. According to information from the last annual shareholders’ meeting, the exchange reduced its net loss in 2022 compared to 2021 by 8.6% to UAH 3.641 mln.
The volume of trading on PFTS in 2023, according to its data, increased 3.6 times – up to 320.8 billion UAH, which amounted to 63% of the total trading volume of securities trading organizers in Ukraine, including in December – 28.6 billion UAH, or 66% of the total trading volume in the country.
In particular, the volume of government bonds traded on PFTS in 2023 increased 3 times to UAH 308.6 billion, corporate bonds of Ukrainian issuers – 20 times to UAH 1 billion (due to the recovery of primary placements), bonds of foreign countries – 5 times to UAH 0.7 billion, but transactions with shares were carried out for only UAH 19.4 million.
In December 2023, 39 participants of trades on PFTS concluded transactions with 48 issues of securities (Ukrainian government bonds – 33, Eurobonds of Ukraine – 1, corporate bonds of Ukrainian issuers – 7, bonds of a foreign state – 6, shares of Ukrainian issuers – 1), and in total in 2023 transactions were concluded by 49 participants with 114 issues of securities.
As of January 1, 2024, the number of PFTS members admitted to trading was 51: 30 banks and 21 financial companies. 353 issues of securities were admitted to trading on the exchange, of which 119 were in the Exchange Register.
At one time, LLC Emporium, established in 2007, was the owner of regional breweries OJSC PBC Krym, CJSC Dnipropetrovsk Brewery Dnipro, CJSC Firma Poltavpivo and OJSC Lugansk Brewery, but later SCM withdrew from this business. Emporium’s core business is commercial and management consulting.
