English
The state has once again become a shareholder of "Rompetrol Rafinare" Constanţa (symbol:RRC), with a stake of 44.69% of the company, after the latter recorded with the Trade Registry the 80.8% share capital increase, (by about 4.41 billion lei), by converting into stock 20.6 million bonds that weren"t bought back.
In October 2003, the Government issued an emergency ordinance concerning the conversion of the "Rompetrol" arrears that the company had on September 30, 2003, including interests and penalties. The bonds had a maturity of seven years and came due in September last year.
By the time the bonds had come due, Rompetrol had only repaid bonds worth 71 million dollars and had paid 24 million dollars in interest, out of the total of budget arrears (recorded on September 30th, 2003).
Thus, "KazMunaiGaz", the owner of "Rompetrol", decided to convert the remaining bonds into stock, during the General Shareholder meeting of September 30, 2010.
The Romanian state challenged the decisions of the Extraordinary General Shareholder Meeting. At the end of June, the Court of Constanţa rejected the contestation filed by the state.
When asked yesterday whether the state would challenge the ruling of the Court of Constanţa, Minister of Public Finance Gheorghe Ialomiţeanu declined to comment.
The Romanian state could have recouped at least part of the money that it is owed by "Rompetrol Rafinare" (former Petromidia), if the Government had approved a decision by which the bonds issued in exchange for the debt of 603 million dollars could be traded on the capital market.
Even the law by which the debts of the former Petromidia were converted into bonds required the Government, in April 2005, to make a decision within six months, to approve a decision by which bonds would be registered with the Securities Registry Office to allow them to begin trading on the regulated market. In spite of all this, the Government decision was not approved, even though even the shareholders of the company agreed, at the end of 2005, to begin the trading of the bonds on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, and the CNVM issued a regulation in this respect. However, all of the above was useless, without the decision of the Government on this matter.
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The history of the bonds of "Rompetrol Rafinare" began in 2003, when the Năstase government decided, in an Emergency Ordinance, to convert the historic debt of the Petromidia refinery into bonds worth 603 million Euros, with an initial maturity of 20 years. However, the maturity was revised two years later, through the Law no. 89/2005, to seven years, which meant the bonds would come due in September 2010. Upon maturity, the law allowed "Rompetrol Rafinare" to buy back the bonds from the government or to convert them into stock.
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