Riga, Latvia, 1 March 2012. NASDAQ OMX Riga informs that as of today ABLV Bank, AS has been granted stock exchange membership. Thus ABLV Bank is the twenty-seventh entity that has obtained NASDAQ OMX Riga member status.
As to ABLV Bank and its clients, NASDAQ OMX Riga membership allows direct trading with equities, debt securities and investment fund units listed on the Latvian securities market. In the future, it will also enable ABLV Bank to provide liquidity to the bank’s own issued bonds.
ABLV Bank stock exchange member code shall be ABLV. As of today, NASDAQ OMX in the Baltics have altogether 37 members – both domestic and international banks and brokerage companies.
„We are satisfied for having joined NASDAQ OMX. In a very near future, we intend to list our own bonds on the NASDAQ OMX Riga bond market. We are planning to become one of the most active stock exchange members, because we expect to have further bonds issues, and we are going to offer them to our clients and also other investors, thus replacing long-term deposits with bonds as more liquid investment instrument with higher yields,” remarks Ernests Bernis, Chairman of the Management Board, ABLV Bank.
About NASDAQ OMX
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. is the world's largest exchange company. It delivers trading, exchange technology and public company services across six continents, with more than 3,500 listed companies. NASDAQ OMX offers multiple capital raising solutions to companies around the globe, including its U.S. listings market, NASDAQ OMX Nordic, NASDAQ OMX Baltic, NASDAQ OMX First North, and the U.S. 144A sector. The company offers trading across multiple asset classes including equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products and exchange-traded funds. NASDAQ OMX technology supports the operations of over 70 exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories in more than 50 countries. NASDAQ OMX Nordic and NASDAQ OMX Baltic are not legal entities but describe the common offering from NASDAQ OMX exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius.
ABLV Bank is the largest independent private bank in Latvia. The bank’s major shareholders Oļegs Fiļs, Ernests Bernis and Nika Berne, directly or indirectly, altogether hold 86% of the bank’s share capital. ABLV group companies are ABLV Bank, AS; ABLV Capital Markets, IBAS; ABLV Asset Management, IPAS; ABLV Transform Partnership, KS; ABLV Consulting Services, AS; ABLV Corporate Services, SIA; New Hanza City, SIA and other companies. ABLV group has representative offices in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Jekaterinburg, Kiev, Odessa, Minsk, Almaty, Dushanbe, Baku and Tashkent.