Central Europe: Big institutions stay away from CEE bourses

More than two years after the enlargement of the European Union, many large equity investors remain convinced that the combined equity markets of central and eastern Europe are too small for them to invest in, despite a combined equity market capitalization of €211 billion at the end of 2005.

By Eric Jansson

The trouble is that this market cap is split between 10 bourses of greatly varying size. Warsaw, for example, posted €106.8 billion in equity market capitalization and Riga just €1.8 billion. While the growing EU aegis boosts access to equity in the region and limits perceived risk, investors must still pick through a highly fragmented trading environment in order to identify good buys.

A bigger target is Russia, so many emerging Europe investors head there, treating the space between Frankfurt and Moscow as fly-over territory.

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