The Bermuda Stock Exchange has been named as the winner of the CFI.co 2020 award for Best Offshore Securities Exchange (Caribbean and North Atlantic Region). CFI.co, or Capital Finance International, is a London-based print journal and online resource reporting on business, economics and finance around the world. The print magazine reaches 1,000 of the most senior executives at the world’s largest companies and is read by more than 150,000 subscribers every month. There are 60,000 unique page views on the CFI.co website every month. Greg Wojciechowski, chief executive officer of the Bermuda Stock Exchange, said: “On behalf of the entire team at the BSX, we are honoured and thrilled to accept this award in recognition of our hard work over the years to build the BSX into the world’s pre-eminent, fully-electronic offshore securities exchange.” In announcing the BSX as the winner, the judges commented: “A fully electronic exchange since 1993, the BSX has contributed to the local economy with infrastructure to centralise the market in a well-founded system with robust domestic and international activity.” As of the second quarter of 2020, the BSX had over 1,000 listed securities, including investment funds, debt and insurance-related securities, as well as small to medium enterprise companies. The BSX attributed its recent growth largely “to its innovative and commercial approach, which includes offering listed issuers speed to market, often in as little as two weeks”. The BSX operates a Mezzanine Listing Facility, which provides development stage companies a unique opportunity to list, and subsequently raise capital, on an internationally recognised exchange at an earlier stage than a traditional IPO. The majority of issuers are Bermudian-based, but the BSX also has issuers from North America, the UK, Europe and Asia. The BSX has also seen an increase in interest from the global capital markets for an alternative internationally recognised exchange platform for the listing of international debt instruments, especially from Latin and South America. The BSX is also the world’s leading exchange for the listing of insurance-linked securities, with approximately 500 listed issuers and $40 billion market capital outstanding, representing a more than 90 per cent market share of global ILS at the end of the second quarter of 2020, the BSX said. Mr Wojciechowski said: “It has been an industrious and exciting year for the BSX and we continue forging ahead with new developments and ventures. “Perhaps the most significant recent development was the BSX’s integration into Miami International Holdings Group of Exchanges with MIH obtaining a controlling interest in the BSX in late 2019. “Since its founding in 2012, MIAX and its Exchange Group has been a generator of technological innovation by creating a comprehensive, fully electronic exchange that has challenged legacy trading room floors. “This partnership will provide additional support to the evolving global re/insurance risk market through innovative products on a global scale with a view towards the futures market. “This award will raise our profile and value offering to business leaders around the world and I look forward to the continued growth of the BSX and our new partners.”