Which companies are enrolled?
Each year a list of companies subject to evaluation under the Baltic Market Awards project is made, comprising:
- all NASDAQ OMX Baltic Main List companies;
- Baltic Secondary List companies with average capitalization over EUR 10 million;
- all other Baltic companies are invited to participate in the project on a voluntary basis.
What is the subject of evaluation?
Each company is evaluated according to over 120 specific criteria.
The criteria fall into five major groups. In the first, company annual reports and corporate governance reports are scrutinized. The experts performing the valuation pay a special attention to company disclosure regarding financial performance, future plans, employment policy etc.. It also matters whether the company has provided information on the management board and council members, their area of responsibilities and compensation, as well as the stock market data concerning the company share trading.
The second group is interim reports. Similar to annual reports, it is important whether the company has properly disclosed information regarding the financial performance and management board and council members.
The third group of criteria deals with the quality of disclosure to market participants, i.e. announcements to the stock exchange. Here a complete disclosure in a timely manner is important – the company has to inform the market on any material events in its business, on development plans etc.. It is also examined whether the company information is equally accessible to all existing shareholders and potential investors.
The criteria falling under the fourth group deal with online disclosure, i.e. company websites. It is taken into account whether shareholder lists are available on the company websites, as well as historical financial statements, the financial statement release calendar, information about the company shares etc..
As to the fifth group of criteria, the evaluation is done by securities market analysts, and they study the competency of the investor relations officer, the availability, reliability and quality of the information disclosed by the company, as well as the openness of the company management to investors.
The company evaluation may be affected by breaches of the stock exchange rules during the year and imposed sanctions, if any.
Who is involved in company evaluation?
Companies are evaluated by an international team of experts built of international level experts on corporate governance and investor relations, representatives from media and academic community, securities market analysts and executive management of the Baltic stock exchanges.
Evaluation of Member of the Year
NASDAQ OMX Baltic stock exchanges name Member of the Year taking into account several criteria. Stock exchanges' specialists are evaluating members’ trading activity (turnover, number of deals etc.) and taking into account whether member has breached the Member Rules. Members receive extra credits if they have taken active part in markets improvement and development projects and also the activity of participation in the meetings organized by the stock exchanges.
