• Today the shares of Intercapital Property Development special purpose investment joint stock company made their debut on Poland's stock market

The agreement between UniCredit Bulbank and the Polish Depositary (KDPW), enabling the listing of Bulgarian companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, has already yielded concrete results: as of today the shares of Intercapital Property Development are traded on the Polish capital market. Thus it becomes the first Bulgarian company tradable in Warsaw.

The agreement on the establishment of an operational link between the Polish Depositary and UniCredit Bulbank (in the role of a custodian bank) was signed in mid-February and the two institutions promptly committed to working actively for real utilization of the established link enabling the listing of Bulgarian companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

„The Polish depositary is working actively to attract foreign companies and, in particular, ones from leading markets in the region of Central and Eastern Europe,“ Iwona Sroka, President and CEO of the Polish Depositary, said. The cooperation with Bulgaria, through the established link with UniCredit Bulbank, is a part of this strategy .

„We are happy that we already have a company that will actually avail itself of the advantages of being listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, namely, access to more capital and steady investment structure. Of course, this will also be to the benefit of Polish investors as it would be easier for them to acquire shares of attractive Bulgarian companies,“ said Mladen Zapryanov, Director for Global Transaction Services at UniCredit Bulbank.

The link with Bulgaria via UniCredit Bulbank will not only enable the clearing and settlement of transactions involving shares of Bulgarian companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, but will also ensure the processing of corporate actions by KDPW in accordance with procedures based on Bulgarian market regulations.

This link will enable the performance of the following processes in respect of the securities registered on the KDPW account in UniCredit Bulbank:

• The processing of all corporate actions, including:

- increases of share capital, stock splits, share exchanges, assimilations, conversions, redemptions, and other reorganisations;

- dividends, rights or other distributions which may be declared payable or distributable as of the relevant record date and payment date;

• Proxy voting service for general meetings.

• Automatic conversion of cash distributions (e.g. dividend payments) to Polish-based holders of Bulgarian securities from BGN to EUR. Cross-border payment can be transferred intra-day to Polish bank accounts.

• Tax withheld on dividends by issuer at source (the Bulgarian issuer acts as withholding agent). Tax reclaims are possible: KDPW will assist in providing application forms and tax documentation to its participants to process tax reclaims for their clients.

The operational link with the Bulgarian market is a free-of-payment (FOP) type. The transfer of securities to and from the Polish market takes place across the accounts of KDPW participants and the KDPW account in UniCredit Bulbank without change of beneficial ownership. It is worth underlining that KDPW participation fees for foreign issuers (including, of course, Bulgarian issuers) are currently free of charge.