Newex project

Trading in shares of central and eastern European companies on Vienna's Newex market will begin on November 3, joint venture partners Deutsche Boerse AG and Wiener Boerse AG said in a statement. The New Europe Exchange has been developed by the Frankfurt and Vienna stock exchanges with the aim of complementing rather than competing with bourses in the region by offering companies access to a pool of capital in a regulated euro-zone market. Newex said 10 companies would be listed in the market's two "quality segments" from the start, in addition to over 100 others from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia. Twenty banks and brokers from Germany, Austria and Britain, who together account for a large part of current trade in central and eastern European stocks, would begin dealing from the exchange's launch. The Newex project is part of a broader alliance between the two bourses, which last year saw Vienna adopt Frankfurt's Xetra trading platform with a view to boosting turnover on the chronically illiquid market.