Euronext distinguishes capital market participants and calls for portuguese market to move forward
Lisbon - 30 January 2015 – The fourth edition of the Euronext Lisbon Awards, was held yesterday. During the event, the Lisbon Stock Exchange distinguished the issuers, financial intermediaries and other institutions, as well as the individuals who, in 2014, played an important role in the Portuguese capital market. The Minister of Economy, António Pires de Lima, closed the event which took place at Culturgest, and was heavily attended by issuers, brokers, investment banks, analysts, fund managers, law firms, academics, governmental entities, regulators and journalists, among other participants.
In the opening remarks, Luís Laginha de Sousa, CEO of Euronext Lisbon, underlined: "We cannot ignore the magnitude of the problems that occurred in 2014 in our market and the negative impact they had, particularly in the investor community. We believe that the fundamental challenges being faced by the Portuguese economy and its companies in particular require, more than ever, solutions that can be made available by capital markets. Our effort and energy is dedicated to ensure that Euronext, together with the local ecosystems we serve, can make the best possible use of the potential of the capital market. In particular we want to help non-financial companies to overcome their structural weaknesses demonstrated by an extremely high degree of indebtedeness, which hinders their development."
He summed up his speech by saying: "Although history does not repeat itself, it provides strong enough evidence that capital markets have an enormous capacity to deal with huge adversities and can be a key instrument to the benefit of the society as a whole, which I’m confident will be the case again."
The fourth Euronext Lisbon Awards edition were hosted by João Vieira Pereira, Director of the Exame magazine and Editor of the weekly newspaper Expresso. Also present to give the Awards to the winners, were several prominent public figures: José de Matos, Miguel Cruz, Miguel Frasquilho, Raul Marques, João Afonso Fialho, José Veiga Sarmento, João Duque, Rui Alpalhão, João da Silva Ferreira, Carlos Magno, Patrícia Vieira Pinto, José António Barros, José Maria Azevedo Rodrigues, Pedro Seixas Vale, Fernando Faria de Oliveira, Rui Leão Martinho, and Francisco Pinto Balsemão (by order of appearance).
The jury of the Euronext Lisbon Awards remained the same as in previous editions: members of the PSI20 Committee namely, João da Silva Ferreira, João Duque and Rui Alpalhão.