Russian companies increase the volume of information they disclose

The amount of Russian company news that are important for the stock market and are disclosed to authorized agencies for publication increased at a high rate in 2008, despite the world financial crisis and its fallout in Russia.

The total number of reports published by Russian issuers and managing companies increased by 20% in 2008, to 113,591, Interfax Service for Information Disclosure www.e-disclosure.ru/ said.

"Under the conditions of the economic crisis, market transparency has been gaining special importance and it seems essential to us that the infrastructure of disclosure created in recent years has continued to work and develop efficiently. Given the volumes of accessible information, the Russian market has been gradually catching up with the British market; our channels publish nearly 400 reports daily, while RNS, the central authorized agency of the London market, publishes some 600 reports a day," Interfax Information Disclosure Service (www.e-disclosure.ru) Director Dmitry Olenkov said.

In 2004, the first year of the disclosure system operation, the number of published stories was 38,000, in 2005 it was 48,000, in 2006 – 63,000 and in 2007 – nearly 95,000.

According to a study, more than 90% of all published important facts are now being published under terms specified by the Federal Service for Financial Markets, in the course of one day. In 2004, this indicator did not exceed 70%.

The number of issuers and managing companies disclosing information through Russian authorized agencies (there are five such agencies at present) was 14,329 at the beginning of the year. Of these, 80% sent their reports to Interfax last year.

In 2007, following the requirements of the Federal Service for Financial Markets of Russia, companies began to distribute press releases in addition to important facts through the disclosure system; new types of company reports were also introduced. In 2008, the authorized agencies published 244 press releases, and 154 reports were disclosed abroad.

The system of information disclosure was created by news agencies in October 2003 which made it possible to improve the promptness of market information by companies. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, it also considerably reduced the risk of insider trading.

The disclosure mechanism created in Russia is similar to the system operating in Britain, which has become the most popular foreign market for Russian issuers, and it meets the requirements of the EU Directive on a Transparency Mechanism for Information Society Services.

Currently, Russian authorized agencies include Interfax, AK&M, Prime-Tass, SKRIN (Comprehensive Issuer Information Disclosure System) and AZIPI (Association for Protection of Investors‘ Information Rights).

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