Exchanges of the Three Seas region signed a letter of intent concerning a new index CEEplus. The launch of the index was officially announced in the presence of Minister of Investment and Economic Development Jerzy Kwieciński at the 29th Economic Forum in Krynica Zdrój. The index portfolio will include the largest and most liquid stocks listed on the exchanges of the Visegrad Group countries, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia; the index will be calculated by GPW. The index will be the underlying of a passive fund managed by TFI PZU.

The CEOs of exchanges in the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary), Croatia, Romania and Slovenia have signed a letter of intent concerning the publication of a new Three Seas region exchange index CEEplus. The launch of the index was officially announced in the presence of Minister of Investment and Economic Development Jerzy Kwieciński during the panel discussion “Development of a Joint Exchange Index of the Three Seas Region: Opportunities and Benefits” at the 29th Economic Forum in Krynica-Zdrój. The Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) will be responsible for the calculation and publication of the index.

The index portfolio will include more than 100 of the most liquid stocks of companies listed on Central and Eastern European exchanges in Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague, Warsaw and Zagreb. Stocks participating in the index have to meet the liquidity criterion: average value of trading per session of at least EUR 90,000 in six months period. The participation of stocks in the index will depend on their free float and will be capped according to the 5/10/40 rule (i.e. participation of the biggest stock is capped at 10%, aggregate participation of stocks weighing more than 5% is capped at 40%). The participation of stocks from any single country in the index portfolio will be capped at 50% (in practice, the cap applies only to stocks listed on GPW).

The letter of intent concerning the new regional index is a part of the ongoing collaboration among the CEE region’s capital markets. The project will ensure that the CEE exchanges speak with a stronger voice across debates concerning EU capital markets. The initiative opens the European Union to a coherent position of the entire region.

The new index will be published daily basing on closing prices converted at the exchange rate of the National Bank of Poland for local currencies, the euro, and the US dollar. CEEplus will be a price index and the underlying of a TFI PZU passive funds: inPZU CEEplus, yet another inPZU subfund of the umbrella fund inPZU SFIO. The fund with a suggested investment horizon of at least three years will be addressed to retail and professional clients and available on the inPZU platform.

The first discussions about a joint index were initiated at the first V4+2 summit of CEE (Central and Eastern European) exchanges held in Prague on 20 February 2018. The event brought together the CEOs from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as Romania and Croatia. The plan to launch a regional index was announced by the CEOs of the regional exchanges during the debate “Co-operation of CEE Capital Markets” at the 28th Economic Forum in Krynica-Zdrój.

Detailed information about the index, its current composition and development is available here: GPW Benchmark – Index factsheet