Romanian Fondul Proprietatea Listing Is Private Hldrs Decision – Official

"The shareholders are the ones making decisions regarding the fund’s listing (…) The minority stockholders’ decision will count more and more in the future. As far as I know, the Finance Ministry will respect the small shareholders’ decisions, especially the one regarding stock market  listing. From this point of view, the shareholders will be the ones making a decision, rather than the Romanian government," Vladescu said.

According to him, the stockholders will have to decide very carefully on the moment when the markets are ready to list a fund as large as Fondul Proprietatea.

"They will list it when they consider the markets are open for such movement," Vladescu added.

The strong downfalls of markets worldwide affected the Bucharest Stock Exchange, which decreased 67.33% in 2008. The market’s decline lead to a sharp decrease of 56.9 billion lei (EUR1=RON3.8573) in the total market value of Romanian companies, that dropped from RON85.96 billion to RON29.05 billion in the last 11 months.

According to the initial calendar, Fondul Proprietatea, which was set up in December 2005 to compensate Romanians for the confiscated properties in the communist era, should have been listed on the stock market in the first part of 2009.

The two and a half-month delay in the fund’s manager selection attracted the discontent of the small stockholders that have recently announced that they might request the dismissal of the members of the selection committee.

The official announcement for the international bid to appoint the manager of Romanian investment fund Fondul Proprietatea will be published on Thursday, Vladescu said Monday.

The government decision  approving the regulation for the international bid and bid documents was published last Wednesday in Romania’s Official Gazette.

Vladescu announced the bidders must submit the initial offers until January 15, 2009 and may request details until this year’s December 24.

According to Vladescu, the winner will be announced until March 2009.

The Romanian Government said in October the fund’s manager should be selected mid-December through competitive dialog and final offers, based on the lowest cost strategy. Also, only the companies that managed total assets worth over EUR30 billion in the last two years were accepted.

The Fund received 28 letters of intent in this respect from the following companies: Morgan Stanley Investment Management; HSBC Bank Plc – HBEU (Great Britain); UBS, AG, Global Asset Management (Switzerland); Deutsche Bank (Germania); Intrinsic Value Investors (Great Britain); Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Great Britain); The Royal Bank of Scotland Asset Management (Great Britain); the consortium formed of Unicredit and Proctor Investment Managers; Morley Fund Management Limited (Great Britain); Stellar Asset Management in association with Bank Julius Baer&Co. (Switzerland); East Capital AB (Sweden); Barclays Capital (Great Britain); Franklin Templeton Investments Poland (Poland); Societe Generale Asset Management (France); BNP Paribas Asset Management (Austria); NCH Advisors (the United States of America); ING Asset Management (the Netherlnads); Allianz Global Investors and Allianz Investment Bank AG din Austria; BCR Asset Management (Romania); Raiffeisen Capital Management (Austria); Fortis Investments (Austria); Eurobank EFG Fund Management Company (Luxembourg) in partnership with Eurobank EFG Asset Management Investment Firm (Greece); Credit Suisse (Germany); Generali PPF Asset Management (the Czech Republic); Artio Global Management (the United States of America); OTP Fund Management (Hungary), JP Morgan and Blackrock.

Romania, through the Ministry of Economy and Finance, is the majority shareholder in Fondul Proprietatea.