350b fresh stocks in ISX

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) official said on Saturday that 20 joint-stock companies will increase their capital, which should add 350 billion new shares to the trading at the Iraqi money market. “Some companies, upon the requirements of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), will increase their capital to a minimum 50 billion Iraqi dinars (ID). However, not all these increases will push a share’s face value by one dinar, but a portion of these increases will be part of the capitalization of profits and reserves,” Taha Ahmed Abdulsalam, the executive director of the ISX, told IraqiNews.com news agency. The ISX had witnessed the first e-trading session on April 19 over five registered companies, three banks and two hotels. The banks are the Ashur International Bank (AIB), Al-Mansour Bank and the Iraqi Credit Bank while the hotels are the Ashtar Hotel and Al-Mansour Hotel. The Iraqi capital market had announced during the June 7 session that it would launch the first e-trading session over the shares of the Iraqi Middle East Bank and the Warka Bank for Investment & Finance. The different sectors shared trading this week with the banking sector grabbing 30%, followed by the investment sector with 29%, the industrial sector with 26% and the hotel sector with 20% The ISX holds three sessions on a weekly basis: one electronic session over five joint-stock companies on Sundays and two manual trading sessions over 86 registered companies out of a total 91 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. AmR (S) 1