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Welcome to the Guernsey Finance podcast page.
Our podcasts bring you all the latest news and insight from Guernsey, the global finance specialist, as well as audio from some of our online events.
Rosie 0:03
Hello and welcome to the latest WE ARE GUERNSEY podcast where we bring you the latest developments from Guernsey's financial services industry. If you haven't listened to some of our previous podcasts already, you can do so on your preferred podcast platform or via the on demand page at weareguernsey.com. My name is Rosie Allsopp and I am the head of communications here at WE ARE GUERNSEY, that's the brand under which Guernsey Finance as an agency promotes the island of Guernsey's specialist financial services in its respective chosen markets. For those of you who are not familiar with Guernsey, the Island is a leading global finance center of substance stability and security committed to the cause of sustainable finance. As a member of several United Nations Environment initiatives, and having been proactive in developing sustainable products and services. You can find out more about Guernsey success in sustainable finance by tuning into our sister podcast Guernsey Green Finance podcast. Today I am delighted to be speaking to Robbie Andrade, he's Chief Operating Officer at the International Stock Exchange better known as TISE, which is headquartered in Guernsey welcome, Robbie.
robbie 1:24
Hey, Rosie.
Rosie 1:25
So Robbie, I'd like to introduce you to our listeners. Can you tell me how you ended up working in The Stock Exchange and a little bit of your backstory, please?
robbie 1:36
Sure. So I started at the exchange in 2005. So some 16 years ago, I'm definitely part of the furniture now. I just completed my European Law Studies University and started working at a local corporate service provider. And the idea was that I would look to pursue a career in law. That wasn't till I saw that then channel Island Stock Exchange was looking to fill an assistant analyst role. I thought this would be a great opportunity to work for a company, which was and still is unique to Guernsey. I hadn't realized at that point that we had a stock exchange here. So it looked like a fantastic opportunity to join the exchange. And as CEO, I lead and maintain responsibility for the day to day running of the listings department, and the market and products department providing assistance to the members of the exchange issue is associated third parties as well as reviewing assisting in the analysis and work of my team, but with a strong focus on business development.
Rosie 2:50
It's really interesting. So can you tell us a bit more about TISE and how many people work in the Guernsey office and what they do?
robbie 2:59
Sure. So TISE is headquartered in Guernsey and we have staff that operate across Dublin, Isle of Man, Jersey and London. We have approximately 36 full time members of staff, the majority of which reside here in Guernsey, and there's a mixture of roles from reviewing applications submitted by issuers, to ongoing monitoring of the post listing activity. There's the compliance functions through to finance, HR, and it as well as marketing and business development. TISE is a regulated market and is uniquely positioned within European timezone. But we're outside both the UK and the EU, as well as being a major European professional bond market. We were among the leading venues in Europe for listing high yield bonds. And we're experiencing strong growth in structured finance and securitization transactions. TISE's also has a pool of domestic equities and significant share of the market for UK listed rates. They are real estate investment trusts, as well as hosting a comprehensive sustainable market segment TISE sustainable. We have over 3000 listings across multiple jurisdictions, and we have a total market value of more than 450 billion, which is fantastic for the size of exchange we are.
Rosie 4:23
It really is. That's absolutely brilliant. Now I've seen that TISE recently achieved a new record with more than 500 listings in the first half of this year. Robbie can you talk me through some of those types of listings that you've had recently, and maybe a bit about why they chose to list on TISE. Urm, yeah, tell me about it.
robbie 4:47
Sure. It has been a fantastic first half to this year 507 securities listed, and that represents 30% increase on the previous record set last year. I'm so proud of our team for working through the volume and maintaining our commitment to turning applications around within our free days and actually even sooner. So we are a well known venue for listing, high yield and investment grade bonds. We have the likes of Netflix listed & Aston Martin. We have investment grade transactions that have been backed by the likes of Blackstone, and Willis. So it's great that we have those kinds of names on our exchange, we're all that we've also listed some sovereign bonds. So we've got the States of Guernsey and the States Of Jersey bonds as well as more recently the Isle of Man bond right through to kind of commercial mortgage obligations got asset backed securities, the more traditional P.E structures. And I mentioned prior that we had some rates. So you know, for example, Westfield, we have that this sort of us and that's great, and a well known brand, as well as the local trading companies. So the likes of practice, and the retailer Sandpiper. So in Why would someone look to list on TISE? So, there are many reasons for listing which include raising capital, and making a security eligible for a pension fund to invest in listed securities, as well as enhancing investor visibility, or attracting new investors. A Company chooses TISE for their listing because we offer a convenient and pragmatic marketplace from from within the European timezone. Our responsive approach, we're nimble and agile. And we can react quickly to changes in a regulatory environment, particularly from the EU and the UK, our listings team have a fantastic rapport with our listing members, and our market authority. So the listing and membership committee, they meet daily to consider and approve applications. And as I mentioned before, we have publicly committed to responding to initial applications within three business days, and then subsequent reviews thereafter, within one business day. We've recently revised our listing rules. And they are a living document and we're constantly engaging with our listing members and market players to ensure that our rules are fit for purpose. And we do that jointly with our experience Rules Committee, who are able to act and adjust the rules quickly and they comprise predominantly locally base members in Jersey and in Guernsey. Another reason for choosing ties is our competitive pricing of beads are fixed, and the initial annual fees vary according to product type, rather than market capitalization. And our fees are competitive compared to appear exchanges and more reasonable than your much larger stock exchanges. were recognized for the purpose of UK Income Tax Act and Ireland's tax consolidation act for the Quoted euro bond exemption. were recognized by the US SSE as a designated offshore exchange. The German regulator Baffin has recognized us for ucits eligibility. And we've also an affiliate member of Iosco, an affiliate member of the World Federation of exchanges, so our reach is much more international. We're also an associate member of the financial- sorry- the Association for financial markets in Europe. So AFNI and a member of the International Capital Market Association, ICMA, and more recently, the UN SSE.
Rosie 8:47
That's quite a lot of reasons, lots and lots of attractive reasons why people want to list on TISE and it's fascinating to hear those names like Aston Martin and Netflix. But you can see from you know, from what you've just said that the flexibility and the nimbleness and that's something that Guernsey business as a whole really excels at. So you have a lot of bond listings. Did I see that you launched a new qualified investor bond market?
robbie 9:20
Yes we did. The TISE bond market is wholly dedicated to listing bonds offered solely to qualified investors. So those are your institutional investors, professional investors and, and other investors are experienced and knowledgeable in investing in bonds. With the launch of DQ IBM, we've positioned ourselves with our closest peers in Europe. We believe that it puts us on a level playing field, be it processes, review times and price were unique against our cohort of exchanges. Just going back to that nimble, agile approach, and that we can pivot on opportunities A lot quicker than perhaps the larger exchanges can do. We provide a single dedicated all enclosed in all inclusive rulebook, which sets up a proportional disclosure regime for all bond products or structures. Previously, we had consolidated the the equity and the then debt rulebook. So now we split those into two dedicated rule books, we remain open to accommodate new and innovative products as they developed. Applications are made via completion of our single composite TISE one form, and these can be submitted via email or via our dedicated online portal. So the idea is to streamline the process even more. So that helps with the ability to expedite applications. We've introduced the concept of TISE's passport. So this is a pan European Fast Track listing service available for those bond programs already approved by national competent authority within the EEA or the UK title. It's a pre vetted bond program, where has been wrapped with our templated TISE passport letter, which that's available on our website and through our listing rules. So the completed ties passport letter, and the corresponding bond programs constitutes what we call the ties bond program. And that's for the purposes of listing final terms on ties. And what we'd like to offer as part of that is that we can provide a next day approval for such issuances under the TISE passport program. And that means anything received prior on or by 12 noon that we will look to execute for listing on the same day, we also offer a one off lifetime fee payment solution. And that can save the issuer significant sums on both the listing and administration costs in comparison with our European peers.
Rosie 11:58
Wow. Now, I don't want you to reveal any trade secrets. But are you able to share a little bit of what the strategy is for TISE over the next sort of six to 12 months?
robbie 12:11
Sure. So one of our strategies is to look to enhance our operating model. So that's more focused on business development, sorry, business development, and joint initiatives with our members and industry sectors. We also are looking to diversify business and revenue streams and the queue IBM will the qualified investor bond market is a good example of this, where we're looking to diversify our bond markets. So I mentioned the high yield bonds, investment grade bonds, pe transactions, convertible bonds, so there's a nice diversification of debt on our market. We also want to look to continuously improve our IT environment, we want to upgrade our hardware or software. We're working on enhancing our online portal to allow a few more application options and also some reporting back to our listing members. And we're also looking at increasing our visibility and recognition. So we're looking at new recognitions and industry memberships. And it really intensify our marketing and communication strategy. I mean as part of my role, it is also to ensure that from a strategic standpoint, that we're looking to execute those objectives to ensure that we can provide an attractive and competitive proposition to our clients and wider market participants.
Rosie 13:36
Now one of the things that really is on everybody's lips at the moment is the topic of green and sustainable finance. And I'm sure you know will be that Guernsey has been at the forefront of green and sustainable finance for many, many years. Now we go into finance. We're delighted that TISE has joined the United Nations sustainable stock exchange's initiative, and recently launched a sustainable segment. Can you tell us a bit about what this means and what does the sustainable segment do?
robbie 14:07
Yes, sustainability is certainly in the news and the UN SSE is a UN Partnership Program whose mission is to provide a global platform for exploring how exchanges in collaboration with investors and companies, regulators and policymakers can encourage sustainable investment, including the financing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our membership of the UN SSE puts us at the heart of global efforts to encourage sustainable investment and provide additional credibility to the launch in July of our comprehensive sustainable market segment TISE sustainable. So TISE sustainable is a segment of the official list which provides sustainable issues and sustainable securities with enhanced visibility among investors and as such It's an enabler for the flow of capital into investments that promote environmental, social and sustainable activities. The launch of TISE sustainable and our membership of the UN SSE, reflect our commitment to being part of the sustainable capital ecosystem, both in terms of how we manage our business, and through our role as a facilitator of global capital flows.
So are sustainable segments particularly common? And can you tell me how TISE sustainable segment compares with other stock exchanges?
Sure, there are a number of exchanges who are promoting these types of segments, whether it be purely equities or bonds, and whether it be green social sustainable. TISE Sustainable is unique because it caters for both issuers and securities, it caters for both equities and bonds and it caters for green, social and sustainable investments. Having a comprehensive coverage all under one roof is different to to the other exchanges. Sustainable finances is gaining momentum globally, market participants ranging from supranational organizations through to financial institutions, as well as individual investors are increasingly recognizing the importance of allocating capital in a manner which finances a sustainable future. So TISE Sustainable has been established to provide a comprehensive and a reputable market segment, which enables the flow of capital into investments that promote these very things. So what are the advantages? It falls into four buckets for us connectivity, we're helping to connect issuers and investors to facilitate the flow of sustainable capital credibility. All issuers and securities are independently assessed against internationally recognized sustainable finance, standards, transparency, publicly available sustainability reporting and comprehensive information disclosure through our website, and visibility inclusion on a dedicated segment, as well as uses TISE Sustainable logos to promote the issue his commitment to sustainable finance. So the segment is available to all TISE listed issuers who comply with at least one recognized framework or rating. So essentially, we have a two pronged approach for how issuers can demonstrate compliance with either a framework or rating. So maybe I'll go into a little bit about that. So firstly, there's the framework. Either the issue is business or VAT if it's wider group, or the use of proceeds raised by the issuance of the security has been or has to be verified, as having an environmental, social or sustainable purpose by an independent party against a recognized framework, such as any one of the igma principles or guidelines to the climate bond initiative, to route one or two, the Guernsey Green Fund in relation to ratings, the issue is business or that of its wider group will also be considered provided they have been independently rated by the likes of sustainalytics or refinitiv, or the global real estate sustainability benchmark. A list of frameworks and ratings can be found on our website. And we're open to considering others that may not have made it to that list. So it gives you a sense of how wider net we've costed to ensure that we can attract a variety of issuers and securities to the segment. So this approach means that the segment is both comprehensive, but also by ensuring that either the issue or security complies, have what have been assessed by a third party and it also means that we can assure that segment is reputable and credible.
Rosie 18:50
Okay, so do you have any case studies or examples of listings that are on the TISE Sustainable segment?
robbie 18:58
Sure, I can give you a few examples. So firstly, we have an issuer called novellus and they are a leading producer of flat rolled aluminium products and a world's largest recycler of aluminium so their proceeds from the issuance of their bond has been used to finance eligible green projects, such as investments in renewable energy and pollution prevention and control. Another example of an issue on TISE is Canary Wharf group. So they're the largest sustainable developer in UK with over 11 million square feet of sustainable certified building. So Canary Wharf is a developer the largest regeneration project in Europe, but has a commercial and residential property company which is responsible for owning managing and developing a regeneration of 120 acres of once derelict, Docklands, so you can see how just through Canary Wharf, just the impact that that's that's happening. Another good example, more recently actually is the Isle of Man Treasury issued and listed a sustainable note solutions of that security is in line with the Isle of Man government's newly established sustainable financing framework. So eligible projects covered under this framework include clean transportation, energy efficiency, and affordable housing as well as education healthcare. We also have the Guernsey Green Fund, which issued debt as part of solar energy projects.
Rosie 20:46
Now this big diversity there, and Robbie that's all we've got time for today. I'd like to say thank you for your time and your insights. It looks like there's some really, really exciting times ahead for TISE. You've achieved so much already this year, and I was really taken with what you had to say about plans for the future as well. I'd like to thank you for listening to this podcast and if you'd like to find out more about Guernsey and its specialist financial services sector, head over to our website weareguernsey.com if you'd like to listen to more podcasts like this, you can check out the We Are Guernsey podcast on your preferred podcast platform. Until then, it's goodbye from Guernsey.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai