St. Petersburg Stock Exchange (SPBEX)
In the offensive competition tacitly conducted between the two eternal adversaries, St. Petersburg and Moscow, the northern capital has an unqualified victory in one point: it was in the city on the Neva that Russia's first stock exchange.
Leningrad Mercantile Exchange "St. Petersburg
January 31, 1991. This date served as the starting point for the activities of the Leningrad Commodity and Stock Exchange "St. Petersburg". Already in April the first trades in the commodities market were held, and in September the participants took a sample from the stock department as well. During the debut year, preparations were underway to create a futures and optionsThe first futures contracts were traded in 1994 and options were put into circulation in 1995. These measures were not in vain: the first futures contracts were traded in 1994, and options were put into circulation in 1995. In addition to that, Leningrad branch of TFB also traded privatization checks and created the Center for Certification and Examination of Exchange Commodities to develop documents regulating the certification system in accordance with European standards.
CJSC "Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchange"
In 1996, there was a rebranding: the institution became a closed joint-stock company, and was renamed the CJSC "Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchange". The management of the company, which had changed its name, continued to increase its turnover: in 1997 an electronic trading system was introduced at the exchange, initially for transactions with futures contracts. Soon, however, electronic trading in options and commodity market products was also launched. St. Petersburg Exchange was expanding its horizons, increasing the number of instruments used on it. By 2004, traders gained access to futures for Urals and Brent oil products and were able to participate in auctions for sale of quotas for production of water biological resources, lease of nonresidential property and import of 10% frozen beef and pork into the Russian Federation. It is also worth mentioning the introduction of electronic trading in sugar on the exchange, as well as the emergence of cross rate futures market currency pair EUR/USD.
Exchange system "St. Petersburg IXSP"
The plans of ZAO Exchange Saint-Petersburg and Sweden's OMX to create a new exchange with equal shares of participation have become a shocking news for the Russian stock market participants. This newly formed institution will be called "Saint-Petersburg IXSP" and claims to be the third force in the Russian exchange system. Such ambitions, according to the management of this project, are based on the application of Western trading technologies, as well as the involvement of the largest international clearing organization - the London Clearing House as a settlement structure. "St. Petersburg IXSP"will focus on mid- and small-cap companies, giving them access to foreign investors first and foremost.
In connection with the recent acquisition of OMX by the U.S. Nasdaq and the transformation of the Swedish exchange into Nasdaq OMX, the owners of the project to be launched are now three (with an equal share each): CJSC St. Petersburg Exchange, the aforementioned Nasdaq OMX and the British venture capital company RX. According to influential experts, the bold newcomer is unlikely to displace RTS and MICEX, but it is quite capable of occupying its niche in the North-West region.
Members of the Exchange "St. Petersburg"
At the moment, about 200 banks and investment companies, servicing more than 200 thousand clients, are participants of trades of the largest Saint-Petersburg stock exchange. A structural subdivision of the institution, the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange was the authorized trading platform of the Russian Government for trading in Gazprom shares, as well as the authorized trading system of the St. Petersburg Government for trading in city bonds. The total turnover of trading on the exchange markets exceeded 29.5 trillion rubles.