Another Record OTC Trading of Securities in Azerbaijan

In September, the National Depository Center registered 24 OTC transactions totaling 81 million 874.4 thousand manat. This is a record figure for the entire period of the NDC since 1999.

Prior to that a record number of OTC transactions took place in October 2013 (69.6 million manat).

According to the normative act adopted by the State Committee for Securities, information on OTC transactions in Azerbaijan is subject to disclosure on the part of the Baku Stock Exchange. However, BSE has adopted its own internal document, which envisages the publication of only generalized data on transactions concluded outside the exchange. The NDC does not provide such data either. Therefore, it is unclear exactly with what securities the off-exchange transaction has been carried out.

In October, the 47 OTC transactions on purchase and sale of shares amounted to 524.7 thousand manat.

In general, according to SSC, in January-October 2015 the turnover of the secondary market in Azerbaijan amounted to over 351 million manat, exceeding the figure for the same period of 2014 by 7.1 times. At the same time, the share of the exchange floor was only 9.4 million manat on the secondary turnover of shares. Experts suggest that the main turnover of shares outside the stock exchange is through the International Bank of Azerbaijan, the depositary of which does not provide any information on the transactions of its shares either. ---08B