St. Petersburg Stock Exchange to unlock part of foreign securities

Owners of blocked foreign securities will soon be able to trade part of their assets. The St. Petersburg Stock Exchange (SPB Exchange) agreed with a foreign investor to exchange securities for $312 million, Report informs via TASS.

“The exchange reached an agreement with a foreign institutional investor to transfer part of the securities to trading sections from non-trading SPB. This investor will exchange within the SPB Bank (exchange settlement depository) his freely tradable foreign securities, in the chain of registration of rights for which there is no National Settlement Depository (NSD), for an equal number of securities of the same issuers that are on the non-trading sections of trading participants and the accounting chain rights for which includes NSD,” the SPB said.

Thus, part of the securities of 680 names will be unlocked, including Apple, Chevron, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Domino's Pizza, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Moderna, NIKE, Pfizer, Virgin Galactic, Visa.

The SPB Exchange clarified that during the exchange procedure, discounts will not arise, as the operations are depository and not sales transactions. Thus, the transfer of foreign securities to trading sections will occur automatically without additional costs and actions from investors.

Earlier, the head of the stock exchange, Roman Goryunov, said that the agreement affects approximately 10% of the assets affected by the blockade.