Following the decision to renew the securities-register-keeping license of Yediniy Registrator (United Registrar) taken by Russia’s Federal Financial Market Service on February 8, 2007, Baltika (Baltic Business News Group) was allowed to give price quotations in the securities register on February 12, 2007. This means all the stock exchange transactions can be registered now.

Prior to renewing the license, Federal Financial Market Service cancelled it temporarily on December 19, 2006 since the Russian Federation law on securities kept being violated throughout the year. So the register was no longer kept, which, as some experts believe, led to a decrease in the demand for stocks of companies who used Yediniy Registrator (United Registrar) (including shares of Baltika (Baltic Business News Group).

‘The investors’ buying and selling transactions were limited to one depository, which made some of them lose interest in the shares of Baltika (Baltic Business News Group). If the keeping of the register concerned blue chips, it would not matter at all as such shares can be bought and sold freely at any stock exchange and at any given time. As for the low-liquidity shares, though, lack of registered transactions might have discouraged some of the investors,’ says Konstantin Selyanin, director of the Ural subsidiary of Accord Invest Investment Company