Sarajevo Stock Exchange
Encyclopedia
The Sarajevo Stock Exchange or SASE is a stock exchange
Stock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...

 which operates in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....

, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

.

History and structure

The Sarajevo Stock Exchange was founded in September 2001 and commenced trading on April 12, 2002, as a central marketplace for trading in securities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which together with the Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...

, makes up the post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. The SASE was founded as a joint-stock company. It had eight founding members. According to the Securities Law, SASE members can only be legal entities - brokerage
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...

 houses which sole activity is trading in securities, with headquarters in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The founding capital
Financial capital
Financial capital can refer to money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or provide their services or to that sector of the economy based on its operation, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc....

 of the exchange was BAM 200.000 (1 BAM = 0.51 EUR).

All SASE members must be licensed for securities trading by the Securities Commission of the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Only those brokers authorized by the SASE members, who have passed a brokers' exam are allowed to trade. The Securities Commission defines the manner and conditions for taking the exam and for revoking the licence. A broker is required to hold a valid licence issued by the Agency. The SASE currently has 16 members, whose headquarters are spread around Bosnia and Herzegovina, the majority being in the capital, Sarajevo. The shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....

 assembly elects a five-member supervisory board for a four-year term. The supervisory board appoints the Manager of the Exchange who is in charge of the strategic planning and daily operations.

The members of the management board of the Sarajevo Stock Exchange and Wiener Börse
Wiener Börse
The Wiener Börse AG is the only stock exchange in Vienna, Austria, and one of the most established exchanges in Eastern- and Southeastern Europe.-History:...

 signed a memorandum of understanding on March 21, 2006. This made Bosnia – after Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 and Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 – the fourth Southeastern European stock exchange to enter into a cooperation agreement with the Budapest Stock Exchange
Budapest Stock Exchange
The Budapest Stock Exchange was re-opened in 1990 with headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.BSE is the key institution of the Hungarian Financial market and the official trading venue for publicly offered securities....

 and the Vienna Stock Exchange. The memorandum of understanding lays the foundation for closer collaboration between the exchanges of Sarajevo and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. The first joint project is expected be an index
Stock market index
A stock market index is a method of measuring a section of the stock market. Many indices are cited by news or financial services firms and are used as benchmarks, to measure the performance of portfolios such as mutual funds....

.

Performance

The performance of the Sarajevo Stock Exchange has exploded in the past few years. Since 2002, market capitalization
Market capitalization
Market capitalization is a measurement of the value of the ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company...

has risen by around twenty times and at the end of 2005 it was EUR 3.3bn (Wiener Börse: EUR 107.1bn). The average daily trading volumes have also soared in the past few years and hit EUR 1.5mn by 2005 (Wiener Börse: EUR 342mn). The leading index of the Sarajevo Stock Exchange, the BIFX, rose from 1,264.20 at the end of 2002 to 4,045.57 points at the end of 2005.

External links

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