Serbia is putting minority holdings in 10 companies on the Belgrade Stock Exchange while established industrial groups are moving in the opposite direction through planned delistings, highlighting continuing changes in the country’s public equity market.
The Economy Ministry plans to sell Share Fund stakes including a 15.003% holding in aluminium producer Impol Seval, as well as interests in Termovent SC, Medifarm, BAG and Zlatarplast and five other companies. Meanwhile, Energoprojekt Holding is preparing to leave the exchange after minority shareholders were squeezed out by an investor group led by Napred Razvoj. Krušik-Plastika is also moving toward withdrawal from the market.
State holdings add shares to the market
The transactions involve different companies and ownership structures, but together they reflect a shrinking pool of publicly traded businesses alongside increasingly concentrated ownership. The planned disposal of the Impol Seval stake represents a different route for state-owned equity because an established industrial exporter is being offered through the stock market rather than transferred outside the exchange.
The eventual ownership structure will have different implications depending on the buyer. Distribution of the stake among financial investors could contribute to greater liquidity and price discovery, while acquisition by the strategic shareholder would further concentrate ownership. Neither outcome would necessarily alter the company’s position, but each would have a different effect on the functioning of the stock market.
Bank financing remains dominant
Serbian companies continue to rely primarily on retained earnings, bank loans, strategic investors and private transactions rather than public equity issuance to fund expansion.
This leaves the Belgrade Stock Exchange with limited trading activity and a relatively small pool of investable listed companies compared with the size of Serbia’s economy. The limited market activity also reinforces itself. Low liquidity can discourage investors from participating, while the small investor base provides companies with fewer incentives to seek a stock-market listing.
Listed-company base faces further contraction
The sale of residual state holdings can add securities to the market, but such transactions alone cannot reverse the broader decline in the number of companies available to public investors. Expanding the market would require new listings, larger free floats and companies using public equity as a financing mechanism. The simultaneous offering of the Impol Seval stake and planned exits by Energoprojekt Holding and Krušik-Plastika therefore illustrates the opposing forces affecting Serbia’s capital market: the state is placing shares on the exchange while concentrated ownership is reducing the number of publicly available equity investments.
