Luxembourg's Euro MTF Market Reaches 5,000 Listings

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

05 September 2008

It was announced last Wednesday that the Euro MTF market - the multilateral trading facility (MTF) run by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange - had listed its five thousandth security.

Of the 5,000 securities listed, the majority were bonds with 3,429 lines, followed by warrants with 1,354.

In addition, there were 151 lines for shares and depositary receipts, notably Global Depositary receipts (GDRs), as well as 46 for investment funds. These figures were reached in just over 3 years.

The Euro MTF market was created in July 2005 by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in order to provide issuers with an alternative market to its traditional EU-regulated market.

The Euro MTF market is an exchange-regulated market as well as a multilateral trading facility as defined by the MiFID Directive. As such it allows issuers to take advantage of a more liberal regime, which is particularly useful for international issuers that do not require a European passport for their securities issues.

Reflecting the attractiveness of the Euro MTF market for issuers outside the EU, the PricewaterhouseCoopers “IPO Watch 2007” ranked this market among the top three European exchange regulated markets in 2007, by IPO offering value.

In the past 3 years, the growth of the Euro MTF market has also been matched by the growth of the regulated market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Since the end of July 2005, the main market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange has grown from 34,530 listed securities to 44,155.

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