Ursache: New investment company to lend confidence to the business circles

The Authority for State Assets Resolution (AVAS) prepared a memorandum through which the Executive will approve the setting up of a new financial investment company (SIF). "This is a method of turning to account the minority packages," the president of AVAS, Mircea Ursache told Nine O'Clock.

According to Ursache, the advantages of such an institution are the transparency and the fact that it offers a wide range of participation of the firms to the purchase of the packages. "Another asset for those who want to invest is the lack of the pre-qualification conditions. This phenomenon will conduct to the increase of the confidence of the business circles," he told us. As for the present period, AVAS president declared that the economy cannot stagnate even in periods of crisis. "It works less, it is at a lower level, therefore this type of revenues, which are not budgeted, are the more necessary," Mircea Ursache stressed. AVAS organized yesterday a round table to discuss the framework in which this new financial investment company, already considered SIF 6, will operate.

The SIF which will manage the minority share packages held by AVAS, will have to be specific, not a general fund, similar to Fondul Proprietatea, which would delay its listing, stressed the representatives of the capital market, during a round table. "The appearance of this SIF is a sort of privatization on minority packages, a thing which generates liquidity for the stock exchange, but also an attraction for the players. We must be careful to not wake up like in the case of Fondul Proprietatea, that four years have passed and it was not listed," said Ionut Popescu, adviser to the Prime Minister of Romania.

"The SIF which will be created can manage itself, or have an active administrator that can coordinate fast and efficiently the activity," stressed the president of the Romanian Commodity Exchange, Septimiu Stoica. The representatives of the brokers also requested the faster listing of the SIF, in order to acquire these packages. Dan Paul, representative of the Brokers' Association, stressed that it is necessary to have a very simple construction of this financial institution.

"The SIF must be listed at the soonest because we want to acquire these packages quickly and cheaply, and AVAS wants to cash the money for these packages at the earliest, especially that we are in a crisis," he explained. AVAS president Mircea Ursache announced that the memorandum for the setting up of the SIF will be ready in two weeks. Actually, he had already announced in February that AVAS wanted to set up a closed financial investment company that would include the minority packages of shares of the firms from the portfolio of the institution. AVAS has in its portfolio 356 minority packages of shares their value being estimated at RON 120 M.

Nine O'Clock