Bogdan Drăgoi, SIF1: "The buyback program is a better alternative for shareholders"

The management of SIF1 Banat - Crişana has proposed the allocation of last year's profit, of 75,324,568 lei, to the reported result and using the money for a stock buyback program, according to the convening notice of the General Shareholder Meeting of April 25th, sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

Bogdan Drăgoi, the president of SIF1 Banat - Crişana, thinks that the proposal he made is more advantageous to shareholders then the payout of dividends.

SIF1 has proposed to shareholders the buyback of a maximum of 30,849,268 shares, of which at most 28,849,268 shares will be used to reduce the share capital, by canceling them, and a maximum of 2,000,000 shares are going to be distributed free of charge to the employees and members of the management. Should it be approved, the operation the will be conducted at prices ranging between 0.50 lei and 3.15 lei/share, over a period of a maximum of 12 months.

"We do not pay out dividends, but we will be conducting a buyback program, which has several benefits, such as reducing the discount", Bogdan Drăgoi added: "Out of last year's profit, we will buy back 30.8 million shares. Through the buyback program, shareholders have two options - selling some of their stock to maintain their stake, as the shares will be bought back or cancelled, or to have faith in the SIF, which is what I encourage them to do, and to keep their current stakes, which will have a greater weight in the company's share capital, after the buyback program".

In the General Shareholder Meeting concerning the balance sheet, the shareholders of SIF1 will also decide on the revenue and expense budget, as well as the program of the 2016 fiscal year, as well as on the salaries of the Board of Directors for the current financial year.

Also included on the agenda is the approval of adding "risk management", as well as "other activities related to its own administration" in compliance with the provisions of art. 5 of the law no. 74/2015 and of the ASF regulation no. 10/2015, as well as the corresponding rewriting of the company's bylaws.

Last year, SIF1 Banat-Crişana had a net profit of 78 million lei, down 43.9% over 2014, according to the IFRS standards, while according to the Romanian Accounting Standards, the profit the company had on December 31st, 2015 amounted to 90.6 million lei.

Revenues from dividends, interests and other forms of revenue on December 31st 2015 amounted to 51.3 million lei, up 126.9% over the 2014. This increase came on the back of earned dividends, which were up 113.6 % over 2014 and other operating revenues, which include revenues from the fair evaluation according to IAS 40, SIF1 states.

On December 31st 2015, the net profit from the sale of assets amounted to 56.6 million lei, down compared to 2014, due to the volume of transactions conducted in 2015, SIF1 also states.