Austria's Capital Market for SMEs on the Brink of a Renaissance

Professional ServicesFinancial Services ♦ Published: April 11, 2018; 16:04 ♦ (Vindobona)

Finance Minister Hartwig Löger plans to revive the Austrian capital market for SMEs by making trading of bearer shares of Austrian companies on the Third Market possible again.

The board of the Vienna Stock Exchange (left to right: Niessen, Boschan, Koblic) welcomes the political commitment to make trading of bearer shares of Austrian companies on the Third Market possible again. / Picture: © Wiener Börse AG / VSE Vienna Stock Exchange

In recent years, the raising of capital for SMEs via the so-called Third Market as a stock exchange-regulated market (also called MTF - Multilateral Trading Facility) has been blocked for formal reasons.

Among other outcomes, this has led to an increasing number of Austrian medium-sized companies going public in Germany in recent years.

Due to OECD regulations, among other…