UBS is buying Credit Suisse in a US$2b deal after a string of US bank failures and in an extended interview the NZ Stock Exchange CEO discusses a lack of IPOs and what sectors the exchange wants more of.
Video / NZ Herald
Banks, agriculture and infrastructure firms are lacking in representation on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX), its chief executive Mark Peterson admits.
In an extended interview on Markets with Madison, he said the exchange represented about 60 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, so it clearly had more work to do.
“We’d love some banks listed. The agriculture sector, we’d like more of that represented on the exchange. Even manufacturing, more of that would be good too.
“Local government-owned assets which have been sold off at times ... Maybe there’s an opportunity for some of that to occur as we go forward.”
The S&P/NZX50 index eclipsed 20 years this month. Its value grew 300 per cent in that period from $30 billion to $120 billion, S&P Dow Jones Indices data showed.
However, in recent years, NZX investors have had few new listings to sink their teeth into.
Peterson said he would have loved companies such as Vodafone, 2 Degrees or Partners Life to follow through with plans to list, but the NZX losing companies to private equity was just part of the capital markets game.
Of the few recent listings, My Food Bag had “taught the market a few things”, Peterson said. But he would not amend rules about shareholder sell downs in IPOs after that.
NZX chief executive Mark Peterson alluded to more local Government-owned assets being listed on the exchange, in an interview on Markets with Madison. Photo / Dean Purcell
Plus, rival Swiss banks are in deal discussions - UBS plans to acquire Credit Suisse in a deal worth at least US$2 billion, according to the Financial Times.
It comes after Credit Suisse stock suffered one of its worst weekly declines last week since the onset of the pandemic, after shareholder Saudi National Bank announced it could not provide any more funding to the Swiss bank and a handful of banks collapsed in the United States.
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