2.29% of Banca Transilvania (TLV) sold in surprise deals

Over 2% of "Banca Transilvania" Cluj Napoca (symbol TLV) was traded yesterday on the BSE, as part of five special transactions concluded on the "deal" market, in exchange for 39.36 million lei.

Claudiu Silaghi, member of the board of Banca Transilvania, yesterday sold some 13.06 million shares of the bank, for 1.62 lei/share.

The transfer comes as lately there have been rumors that "National Bank of Greece" might make a bid for BT, which led to a considerable share price increase.

Still brokers say that yesterday"s transactions are nothing more than speculative moves, but declined any further comments.

Robert Rekkers, General Manager of "Banca Transilvania", yesterday stated for our newspaper that that he didn"t know anything about yesterday"s transactions.

"It wasn"t me, so I can"t tell you who the buyer and the seller were", he added.

Horia Ciorcilă, main Romanian shareholder of Banca Transilvania, who holds 5% of the bank, was not available to comment.

Yesterday"s deal was completed at an average price of 1.62 lei/unit, 0.6% higher than the reference price, putting the capitalization of the bank at 1.7 billion lei.

The bank"s net profit dropped 90% in H1 2009, from 111.43 million lei to just 11 million lei, on the back of increased impairment charges.

However, the second quarter showed increased profitability, with the bank posting a net gain of 10 million lei, compared to just 1 million lei in Q1 2009.

According to information on the website of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the EBRD holds a 14.97% stake in TLV, wjereas three of the FICs (SIF) hold 5% stakes.