NEW MILESTONE: Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX) unveils strategy to boost market positioning ahead of its listing as a public traded company in five years
Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX), the only bourse of the Sultanate of Oman, has outlined a raft of initiatives to help strengthen its regional and international positioning during the timeframe leading up to its public listing on the stock market in about five years’ time.
They include strategies to, among other things, enhance the appeal of the MSX, introduce new products for investment, support easier access to local and international investors, develop a futuristic exchange, enhance market infrastructure and operations, and strengthen its commercial sustainability the creation of new revenue centres.
An overview of MSX’s ambitious strategy was presented by Haitham bin Salem al Salmi, CEO of Muscat Stock Exchange and Chairman of Muscat Clearing & Depository, during a virtual event hosted by the Armenia-headquartered Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) on Thursday.
Around 100 key figures, representing Stock Exchanges, Investment Banks, Brokerage Firms, Asset Managers, Funds, International Corporations, as well as local market participants, spanning the world from Asia to Europe, Middle East to Africa, attended the event, titled: ‘Meet the Market with FEAS — The Omani Capital Market’.
Established by Royal Decree last year as a private Omani closed joint stock company, owned by Oman Investment Authority, MSX is being actively transformed into an attractive bourse for local and foreign investors before it is slated to become a publicly traded company within five years, said Al Salmi.
“As we are part of the Omani economy, we want to ensure our main activities and initiatives support national economic development, enhance our contribution to the GDP by increasing the size of our market capitalisation, support the growth of a platform for SMES because they represent the seeds feeding the main market, and also attract foreign investment by opening up access to the market.”
The latter objective – opening up the market to foreign investors – has now been fully accomplished, said the CEO.
“Today itself we have achieved the most important milestone towards upgrading the market: We have removed the ceilings for almost all of the listed companies, except in a few situations where their Articles of Association specify a 70 per cent ceiling. 29 of our MSX Index of 30 companies have no ceilings on foreign ownership – which is a milestone achieved today!” he stated.
Another key goal is to secure an upgrade for MSX from the current ‘Frontier Market’ classification to ‘Emerging Market’ status, said the official.
“We want to be on the radar of investors looking at emerging markets’’, he said, citing in this regard the world-renowned MSCI and FTSE indices as MSX’s “main strategic mapping points” in securing an upgrade to ‘Emerging Market’ status.
Further, to ramp up the underlying appeal of the stock exchange to investors, MSX plans to introduce a diverse array of new products on the market.
“We want to provide a wider range of products to investors and introduce more instruments to be listed. At the same time, we want to reduce the cost of investment, create an attractive marketing scheme, and also enhance the capabilities of our intermediaries -- our brokers -- because they are the ones who face the clients and investors.”
Also as part of its strategy, MSX plans to invest in cutting-edge technology to strengthen the efficiency of its operational processes, said Al Salmi.
“At MSX, we believe that technology is the best way to achieve our goal of being a futuristic exchange. Our main interest is to use technology to enhance our financial performance; We believe in smart exchanges, in integration and in strengthening the Settlement, Clearing and Depository processes, and so on. We want the digital platforms to be user-friendly and to reflect our trading volumes’’, he added.
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