Activity & Opportunity in the Oslo Equity Markets

During the first half of 2005 we saw tremendous capital raising activity in Norway for shipping, offshore and energy related companies. According to our estimates, more than USD 2 billion of equity capital has been raised so far in 2005, which is up 160% compared to the full year 2004. As we can see from Figure 1, 13 shipping, offshore and energy related companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE) so far this year, and another seven should be listed by the end of 3Q 2005.

As illustrated by Figure 2 below, the OSE has greatly outperformed all the major stock exchanges so far this year. This has mainly been driven by the OSE’s heavy reliance on the energy sector. During the first half of 2005, the energy index increased by 52% compared to a 32% increase for the Oslo All Share index.

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