Oscar Mendoza: MGL Was Able not Only to Recover, but Clearly Outperform the Rest of the Countries

The UB POST is acting as a media sponsor for a conference called “MONGOLIA:Capital Raising & Investment” scheduled in early June of 2011. We have some details about the event from Mr. Oscar Mendoza, Chief Operating Officer of Frontier Securities, the host of the event.

-Explain more about the Frontier securities and their activities? What is the benefit of working with Frontier?


-First of all, Frontier Securities has a seat on the Mongolian Stock Exchange and can do anything related to MSE such as underwriting, brokerage and dealing.

Furthermore, as a boutique investment bank with strong cross border capabilities, Frontier Securities can also help Mongolian companies in all aspects of corporate finance such as PE, IPO, M&A, divestitures, capital raising & joint ventures, double listings, private placements and many others.

Basically, if Mongolian companies need capital to continue their growth and expansion, we can facilitate the capital raising and obtain much better terms than those currently being provided by local commercial banks.

Finally, as a reputable expert in Mongolian investments, Frontier Securities can help investors in all aspects of investing in Mongolia such as due diligence, sourcing deals, joint ventures, strategic alliances, structuring, and so on. I cannot stress enough the importance of performing ample due diligence within the Mongolian market.

The market economy is relatively at an infant stage, being around for only 20 years, and thus provides unique opportunities and challenges.

-I have heard that you are moving to a new office?

-Yes, we are growing very rapidly and in order to accommodate more staff we are moving to Blue Sky Tower. It has a nice location on the main square of the country, and it will be very convenient for our clients to visit our office and consult our employees.

-How do you think of capital market development in Mongolia?

-The severe financial crisis that affected the whole world and hit Mongolia relatively hard made almost all financial institutions and service providers quite concerned about the heartbeat of the market in Mongolia.

With the help of the IMF, the World Bank, and the EBRD, Mongolia was able to not only recover, but clearly outperform the rest of the countries. In 2010, the MSE was the best performing stock market in the world with TOP20 index growth of 136.44%.The index is 42% YTD as of May 3rd, 2011.

The MSE market cap is above 2 trillion MNT, or almost 2 billion USD. Clearly, the market is picking up. However, there are still many challenges that need to be addressed.

We are the second smallest stock exchange in the world, liquidity remains a problem, the average Mongolian is yet to embrace stock market, good listed companies are few and understanding of corporate governance is rudimentary.

But, as we like to quote often, Rome was not built in one day. I would want to give credit to the Government of Mongolia for prioritizing the capital market’s reform.

They are implementing in reality a strategic partnership with LSE for MSE reform and are carrying out tremendous tasks in order to make Tavan Tolgoi domestic free IPO so to say, which will inherently lead to a successful jumpstart for the domestic capital market.

Mongolia is to become a nation of universal share ownership, which is very interesting and applauded by international investors.
In addition, the new securities law will be a key to improve corporate governance, tackle insider trading and resolve other issues that undermine the confidence and trust in the market.

Hence, confidences of both international and domestic investors will be heightened.

When investors and the Mongolian public become more confident and commence to trust the stock market more, I think the barriers will be removed and it will be a huge success. I believe in the bright future of the capital market in Mongolia and it will be a win-win partnership for both Mongolia and investors and we, Frontier Securities, are happy to be a big part of it.

-I heard that you are hosting a big conference on June 7th and 8th. Please explain the purpose of it. How much is fee to attend, and who would benefit by attending the conference?

-Yes, our conference was very successful last year and looks to be a very big one this year. We are anticipating that this conference will be the biggest financial markets conference in the Mongolian market.

BOCI, CICC, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Prophecy Resource, Quam Asset Management, Hogan Lovells, American Appraisal, Moody ’s Investors Service, EBRD and CRU just to mention a few.

In addition, senior managers from Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Korea Stock Exchange, Tokyo AIM, Deutsche Börse AG, Australian Securities Exchange are to attend. Many industry VIPs are confirmed to speak including Chairman of Erdenes TT D.Sugar and CEO B.Enebish, MPs and many, many others.

We certainly hope that it would be top industry event and as such it would be helpful for anybody interested in investing in Mongolian and vice versa for anybody who wants to raise money in Mongolia.

-How much is the fee to attend?

-Attendance is free!

-Other than conference, what do you offer that can be of interest for our readers?

-We offer a service called “Frontier Station” which is an online trading platform that can be of particular interest to Mongolian retail investors.

-What is online trading? And what can investors trade?

-Basically, you can trade mostly anything including foreign exchange, stocks, CFD, commodities, etc. You can buy stocks, CFD’s and Futures from more than 20 different stock exchanges in the world. But of course we specialize in Mongolia-related assets such as Mongolian equities listed abroad.

This means that Mongolian Retail investors can purchase shares of companies such as MMC, South Gobi, Prophecy, Petro Matad, etc. from the comfort of their home or office. And all of this directly by themselves!

-It is interesting. But I do not have enough money. How much is the minimum amount I need to invest?

-Minimum is ... so I am sure most of the readers can afford it.

-Good. I can probably manage. By the way, how can we open an account with you?

-I highly recommend that interested people visit our office so that we can discuss and explain our platform to them in person. One of the biggest advantages we offer to our clients is personalized service, something big institutions are incapable of. Please don’t hesitate to call us at 7011 9999 at any time for further enquiries.

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