In the Company's target shareholding structure, the stake will represent 36.23% of all shares conferring the right to 30% of votes in Aquis Exchange and a 30% share of profit. WSE's investment aims to further diversify its sources of revenue, to strengthen its brand and the position of the Exchange on international financial markets, including continued improvement of the role of WSE as the leading financial hub in the CEE Region.

"Many people were surprised that a CEE exchange would have such ambitious development goals. We can now report that our words have been turned into action: we have finalised the acquisition of shares of the pan-European trading platform Aquis Exchange. But the challenges do not end here. There is plenty of work to be done to develop the project and to achieve the goals that we have set. With our engagement in the Aquis Exchange project we not only diversify our activity but also open access for Polish brokers and investors to the biggest stocks listed on the most advanced European markets," said Adam Maciejewski, President of the Management Board of WSE.

Aquis Exchange is regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and operates a pan-European equities platform. Aquis Exchange launched in November 2013 as a multilateral trading facility and currently offers trading in the biggest stocks from the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The platform plans to offer over 1,200 stocks from 14 Western European markets in due course.

Aquis Exchange is set to revolutionise the European trading landscape by its introduction of new pricing model and innovative order types. Aquis Exchange is the first to offer subscription pricing based on a similar model to that of the telecoms industry. Aquis Exchange Members are charged according to the message traffic they generate, rather than a percentage of the value of each stock that they trade. There are different pricing bands to accommodate varying degrees of usage, with a very low usage band for a limited number of trades to the top category where usage is unlimited.

In addition to its innovative pricing system, Aquis Exchange has designed and developed a matching engine with outstanding capacity and latency performance which address the expectations of the most demanding traders. The Company is planning to earn revenue from sales of technology licences and services related to its software.

Aquis Exchange was founded by Alasdair Haynes, who has more than 30 years of experience on the financial market. He is a former CEO of Chi-X Europe. Prior to that, he spent 11 years heading up ITG's international business, pioneering the introduction of electronic trading, dark pools and crossing into the European and Asian marketplaces.