BVB Council Proposes Listing of Own Shares

The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) Council will call a shareholder meeting in December to ask for authorization to list BVB on the regulated market in order to turn BVB into a leading player on the Romanian financial market and Southeast European markets. BVB President Stere Farmache said: "The BVB Council will hall a General Meeting of Shareholders in mid-December to obtain authorization to turn BVB into a publicly held company by listing its own shares on the regulated market. BVB needs to have a shareholder structure that ensures continuity and support for the process of transforming it into an important bourse." During the General Meeting, shareholders will discuss the listing on the regulated market and the issuance of an authorization to the Executive Board in order to manage the listing process. The actual procedure for the listing has not been decided yet, the options being an IPO or an SPO. "The listing must be a very carefully controlled process. We need all the details in place and we need to study the market conditions in order to choose the best timing," Farmache added.

The BVB is hoping that the listing will have effects on other companies and become a model to those who consider becoming listed themselves. A previous listing proposal was made in 2005, when the BVB was turned into a shares company. The shareholders did not reject the idea, but postponed it. Increasingly numerous brokerage firms have been selling their shares in BVB in order to obtain liquidities or to buy them back later for less. The latest sale offer came from KBC Securities, which offered 60,000 shares in BVB for 60 RON/share. Since the beginning of this month, Orizont Vest - Oradea and Eurosavam - Ploiesti have offered 14,000 shares for 65 RON/share and, respectively 30,000 shares for 55 RON/share. The BVB shareholder meeting in December will also discuss the budget for 2009 and some ongoing projects. BVB has a share capital of 76.74 million RON divided into 7,166,174 ordinary shares and 508,024 preferential shares.