Bucharest Stock Exchange, valued at 80m euros

The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) has been appraised at about 80 million euros, according to the latest valuation report it requested, capital market sources say. The valuation report was drawn up by professional service company Ernst & Young. The value of the Bucharest Stock Exchange has increased almost five times over the last two years. PricewaterhouseCoopers had appraised the Stock Exchange at 16 million euros in October 2004. The BSE later merged with RASDAQ, whose value was a little over one million euros. The increase in the value of the BSE is slightly higher than the increase in trading volume and in the BET index, which gauges the performance of the main traded stocks. The daily traded value has gone up by about 4 times to 9.5 million euros in the last two years, while the BET index rose by about 3 times. The Bucharest Stock Exchange chairman, Septimiu Stoica, would not comment on this information, specifying that the value detailed in the report will be made public after being presented to the Sibiu Monetary-Financial and Commodities Exchange. The Sibiu Exchange, where futures contracts are traded, in turn requested a valuation report, with the value thereof amounting to about 6 million euros, quoted sources say.