Poll

Capital market

591.2 PLN billion
value of domestic companies
listed with WSE
- 0.4% y/y

Stock market (WSE main market and ASO New Connect market)

At Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) the year 2014 was pretty disappointing, since it was marked by a side trend. In 2014, WIG20 dropped by 3.5% and WIG increased by approx. 0.3%. A pension system reform and the related marginalization of Open-Ended Pension Funds, as well as the Ukrainian conflict and the following increase in geopolitical risk in Europe are the reasons. During the 12 months of 2014 four out of eleven stock exchange indexes increased. WIG-Energia saw the biggest growth (by 23.6%), while WIG-Spożywczy lost the most (-20.0%).

At the end of December 2014 the value of Polish firms listed at the Warsaw Stock Exchange reached PLN 591.2 billion and was by 0.4% lower than in December 2013. In 2014 companies chose the capital market as the source of financing growth more often than a year before. During 2014, 28 companies debuted with the Stock Exchange, as compared to 23 IPOs in 2013.

Investors were less active. Shares worth PLN 232.9 billion changed hands as result of session transactions, i.e. by 9.1% less than in the previous year.

In 2014 total capitalization of companies decreased (17.3% y-o-y), as did the value of offers (32.3% y-o-y) on the over-the-counter market. In 2014, NewConnect saw 22 IPOs, and ten companies (the biggest number in the history of this market) moved to the WSE Main Market. This affected among others the number of companies on the over-the-counter market: at the end of 2014, 431 companies were listed compared to 445 at the end of 2013.

On 2 January 2014, WSE commenced publishing of new derivative indexes to WIG30 introduced in September 2013: WIG30short and WIG30lev. Since 24 March 2014, WIG50 and WIG250 have been published. The implementation of UTP was continued to include UTP-Derivatives. The year 2014 brought new draft WSE projects, including stock options, binary and monthly options, electricity futures settled on cash basis and diversification of commodity exchange transactions to go beyond electricity and property titles trading. 20 June 2014 was the last day of quoting WIG20 futures with PLN 10 multiplier. Since 23 June 2014 WIG20 futures traded have been limited to those with PLN 20 multiplier.

Bonds market (Catalyst)

The Catalyst market also saw a reduction in the quoted stock issues. At the end of December 2014, the value of debt securities of 193 issuers traded on the Catalyst market reached PLN 544.6 billion, while at the end of December 2013, debt securities of 176 issuers reached PLN 619.1 billion. In 2014, the value of corporate bonds issued with Catalyst reached PLN 60.9 billion, while the value of municipality bonds reached PLN 3.2 billion, and of the State Treasury Bonds PLN 480.5 billion. In 2013, the value of each instrument type issue reached PLN 55.8 billion, PLN 3.1 billion and PLN 560.2 billion, respectively.

In 2014, 191 entities debuted on Catalyst market compared to 196 entities in 2013, with the highest IPO value (expressed as the total value of bonds included in the motion) reached EUR 500 billion vs. PLN 1.0 billion in 2013.

During 12 months of 2014, TBSP Index (Treasury BondSpot Poland) increased by 9.45% vs. 1.98% in 2013. The scenario resulted mostly from the Ukrainian conflict, which first deteriorated the assessment of the Polish and European economy, thus turning investors’ attention to bonds as safe securities, and then progressed to mutual sanctions imposed by Russia and Europe, which further deteriorated inflation and GDP ratios. Additionally, interest rate reduction by Monetary Policy Council in October 2014 contributed to further growth in valuation of treasury bonds.

Investment funds’ net assets

After the successful 2013, where assets managed by domestic investment funds increased by 29.6%, in 2014 the growth in assets was nearly three times lower and reached 10.4% with the final assets value of PLN 208.9 billion. The slowdown resulted mostly from reduced interest in funds on the clients’ side. Securitization funds saw the biggest growth (on non-public market) generating profit on the receivables market. Their asset value increased by nearly PLN 1 billion (60%) during the year. In 2014, the average return rate of national investment funds was 1.82%.


Annual Report 2014 - Bank Pocztowy