Last week, the Mongolian Stock Exchange (MSE) organized the Mongolia Investment Forum: London 2026 to promote plans to open state-owned enterprises to public investors, and held talks with the implementer of a UK government program on technical support to deepen the domestic market.
Organized by Capital Markets Mongolia (CMM), the forum brought together more than 150 investors from over 80 international organizations, representatives of capital market professional bodies, and delegates from leading Mongolian banking, finance and technology firms. Discussions covered the development of the country’s financial and capital markets, along with opportunities in information technology and artificial intelligence.
In the session titled “A New Era for Mongolia’s Equity Market,” Acting CEO of the MSE D.Munkhbat presented an overview of the market’s current state, its growth in recent years, investment opportunities, and future policies and objectives. He also outlined measures to open state-owned enterprises to the public through the capital market, part of the government’s broader reforms to improve governance and efficiency and to enhance public oversight.
The reform has moved quickly this year. On July 8, the government signed a memorandum of understanding with Franklin Templeton to prepare state firms for listings on domestic and international markets by 2027. Mongolia has 108 state-owned enterprises with about 60,700 employees and combined assets of roughly 60 trillion MNT, and the government has said many fall short of international standards on governance, profitability and investment readiness. Officials have underlined that the plan does not involve rapid privatisation. Companies will first be assessed against international methodologies and improved before being considered for listing. The parties will explore consolidating a portion of state shares into an investment fund whose units would be offered to professional investors on domestic and international exchanges. A first portfolio is targeted for international markets by the end of 2027.
At the forum, Executive Director for Central Asia at Franklin Templeton Marius Dan stressed the importance of opening state-owned enterprises to investors, ensuring professional management of state assets, and raising capital through domestic and international markets. Drawing on the firm’s experience with similar funds in Romania and Uzbekistan, he said these steps are crucial for increasing long-term institutional investment, boosting the value of state-owned enterprises and accelerating capital market development.
The Uzbek precedent is the closer model. Dan oversees the National Investment Fund of Uzbekistan (UzNIF), which holds minority stakes in 18 state-owned enterprises valued at about 1.5 billion USD and listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2026 after a 604 million USD IPO. Earlier in his career he worked at Franklin Templeton Romania, on Fondul Proprietatea, a fund listed in London and Bucharest.
MSE representatives also met the Palladium Group, the implementer of the UK government’s MOBILIST program, to exchange views on potential collaboration. Launched in 2020, MOBILIST is a UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office initiative that uses equity capital, technical assistance and UK government backing to help investment products list on public markets, and it is delivered in partnership with the governments of Norway and Switzerland. As of September, it partners with 11 stock exchanges globally and operates in more than 70 countries, focusing on launching new investment products, providing technical assistance and fostering investment.
The parties agreed to pursue cooperation and secure technical assistance for initiatives to improve liquidity in the domestic market. These include developing a market-maker system, increasing the issuance of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index-based products, and expanding the sustainable finance market.
The exchange has changed a great deal since its founding. It was established in 1991 by government decree to privatise state-owned assets, and the voucher scheme that followed gave 1.2 million citizens the means to buy into 475 state-owned companies. In 2025, securities trading reached MNT 906.3 billion and market capitalization grew to 13.85 trillion MNT. Even so, CMM says only 13 percent of the country’s top 100 companies are listed, and the MSE’s 2026 to 2030 strategy targets a FTSE upgrade and an inaugural MSCI rating.
