An open letter to the CEO of the BSE Ludwik Sobolewski

Dear Mr. Ludwik Sobolewski,

We find your answers to our questions concerning your earnings during your term as CEO of the BSE as unsatisfactory, leaving obscurity to linger over a topic that should be clear.

The stock market requires that kind of transparency from all the listed issuers and you can't use the argument that you are going to reveal that kind of information once all the listed issuers do the same.

The normal thing to do is to set an example for everybody.

As a result, please be so kind as to answer the following direct questions:

1. Is it true that at the time your contract with the BSE was signed, the profit target for 2013 set through the budget of the BSE, approved in the General Shareholder Meeting, had already been reached or exceeded? If the answer is yes, then why did you receive that substantial end-of-year bonus?

2. Is it true that you had targets that were very easy to reach when it comes to the year-end stock price of the BSE (around 23 lei)?

3. Is it true that your performance ratios when it comes to the liquidity of the market and the profit of the BSE this year are being compared against those of 2012, instead of 2013?

4. Is it true that this year's liquidity, set through your contract, has to increase 50% over 2012, instead of 2013? Will you get a bonus if this year's liquidity of the BSE is below last year's average?

5. Where is the motivation for you to strive to achieve the performance ratios, if they are very easy to reach?

6. Why isn't your contract with the BSE public (concerning the salary and the performance ratios), when the BSE is a listed company and it should set an example for the other listed companies?

7. How would you rate the level of your salary compared to the amounts being discussed in the domestic financial and banking sector? Have the turnover/profit/liquidity of the BSE been taken into consideration in determining your salary?

8. How much of the total expenses of the BSE do your salary, accommodation and transportation expenses represent?

We await your answers as soon as possible, but please, no later than ten days after the date they were sent.

Yours respectfully,

Adina Ardeleanu

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of BURSA