BRK Financial Group is celebrating 27 years of activity by listing its first bond issue

The first bond issue of BRK Financial Group (BRK), a broker from Cluj-Napoca with 27 years of activity on the local capital market and the only brokerage company listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), started trading on BVB’s Main Market under the ticker BRK26. The RON 25mn attracted through the private placement will support the expansion of the market-making activity and the diversification of the structured products portfolio.   BRK Financial Group is currently the leader in the structured products segment, with 38.1% of the total traded value since the beginning of the year. The broker from Cluj-Napoca is also an issuer market maker for 12 financial instruments, 11 shares and a bond issue.   ‘Brokers are one of the most important capital market pillars. BRK Financial Group has written alongside BVB and other local brokers the history of the modern stock exchange. We are glad that BRK is an active broker, both in relation to stock market investors and in terms of financing opportunities given to Romanian entrepreneurial companies. Today is the day when BRK, as an entrepreneurial company founded in 1994, rang BVB’s bell and thus demonstrates, through its own example, the stock market's ability to support the local business environment’, said Radu Hanga, Bucharest Stock Exchange President.   ‘By listing this bond issue, BRK marks a new premiere, namely the first issuer to meet this quality from three angles, namely: shares listed in 2005, issuer of structured products since 2012 and, as of today, a bond issuer. With the attracted funds, we increased our working capital to approximately RON 130mn, which remains mainly financed by equity (73%), complementary by bonds (19%) and residual by credit lines. The funds will sustain the extension of some business lines that generate high added value and I refer myself to the market making segments, respectively the issuance of structured products. We believe that through the obtained results we have demonstrated that we can produce the expected results, and from today we have an additional responsibility, the one towards our bondholders’, said Monica Ivan, BRK Financial Group CEO.   BRK Financial Group was established on October 26, 1994, and since 2005, is listed on the Main Market, being the first and until now the only brokerage company listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange. BRK manages its own portfolio of financial assets and offers traditional brokerage services nationally and internationally, as well as corporate transactions. The company reported for the first half of this year a net profit of RON 14.8mn, an increase of 95% compared to the end of last year.   BRK own portfolio management includes its account transactions, market-making operations and structured products operations. BRK Financial Group holds SAI Broker as well as controlling positions within the start-ups Romlogic Technology, Firebyte Games (FRB), GoCab Software and REIT Capital, Star Residence Invest’s manager (REIT). The operations carried out on its own account generated, in the first six months of the year, a profit of over RON 10mn.   BRK is the Issuer's Market Maker for 12 financial instruments listed on BVB. In the first half of the year, the revenues from the market maker activity increased by 43% compared to the same period last year, up to RON 2.7mn.   BRK has a market leader position on the structured products segment: in the first 9 months of this year, BRK intermediated 38.1% of the total value of trades with structured products, of RON 470mn. BRK intends to list structured products on other Central European markets, namely stock exchanges in Poland, Hungary, Austria. BRK estimates a market share of 10% on the structured products segment in the first years of activity on Budapest Stock Exchange, respectively 5% on Vienna Stock Exchange and Warsaw Stock Exchange.   BRK Financial Group is in the top four intermediaries according to the value traded with shares and fund units on BVB’s Main Market since the beginning of the year, respectively RON 1.8bn (12% of the total value traded on BVB). Brokerage activity and corporate operations, as a basic activity of BRK, generated higher revenues by 119% in H1 2021 up to RON 8.9mn (H1 2020: RON 4.1mn).