English• Viorel Ştefan (PSD): "It"s obvious that we"ll be stuck holding a < hot potato > if we win the government" • Eugen Nicolăescu (PNL): "If the current government doesn"t do a good job managing the companies in the portfolio of the Proprietatea Fund there will be lawsuits"
The listing of the Proprietatea Fund (FP) on the Bucharest stock exchange has generated mixed reactions among the Romanian politicians.
The MPs of the governing party consider that the Proprietatea Fund should have been listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange a long time ago, to prevent the shady trading of its shares, whereas the members of the opposition claim the decision to list the Fund during the crisis could lead to losses, both for the state and for the people who were compensated with shares of the Fund.
The fears of the opposition are also tied to the fact that the next government - which they may become a part of the following the elections of 2012 - could be forced to pay huge amounts as damages following the lawsuits that some of the former asset owners filed with the courts, as they were unhappy with the benefits obtained from the listing.
• Eugen Nicolăescu: "A fund like this should have been listed after the crisis"
The deputy leader of the group of the National Liberal Party (PNL) of the Chamber of Deputies, Eugen Nicolăescu, a member of the Budget and Finance commission, considers that the timing for the listing of the Proprietatea Fund was bad.
Eugen Nicolăescu said: "Such a valuable fund shouldn"t have been listed on the stock exchange at a time like this, but rather they should have waited for a more favorable situation, perhaps until after the crisis was over. It was obviously a mistake. No manager would have done that if it had been their own money on the line".
When asked if the state could in the future be faced with a deluge of lawsuits due to the fact that the shares of the Fund saw their price drop far below their face value, Eugen Nicolăescu said: "Romania has always honored ownership, and the former owners whose properties were seized by the communist regime were compensated in stock. We may see lawsuits filed against the state, but not because of the method that was chosen to compensate the former owners, but because of the faulty manner in which the Romanian government will manage the companies that the Proprietatea Funs has in its portfolio. In the future, this may be a problem that the current government needs to be very careful with".
• Viorel Ştefan (PSD): "The Proprietatea Fund should have been listed under different market circumstances, not at such a turning point"
Social-democrat Viorel Ştefan, the chairman of the Budget-Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies considers that the state as well as the future government could end up facing a problem that would be very hard to handle: "Of course there is the risk of the state being sued and losing. If the price of the shares of the "Proprietatea Fund" will continue to hover so far below their face value, we"ll almost certainly be left holding a < hot potato > if we win the government".
Viorel Ştefan agrees that the moment chosen for the listing of the Proprietatea Fund was badly chosen: "The Proprietatea Fund should have been listed when the stock market was rising, not an inflection moment. The proof? On the day of the listing, the market was overheated by the manager of the Fund, but it then became visible that the trading was being done at low prices, in line with the general level of the market".
Iulian Urban (PDL): "The listing of the Proprietatea Fund will reveal those who bought shares on street corners"
The MPs of the governing party consider that the listing of the Proprietatea Fund could no longer be postponed.
PDL senator Iulian Urban said: "The longer we had delayed the listing, the more the situation of those who own shares in the fund would have become uncertain. No one can tell for sure if the timing was good or not. What"s certain is that the listing of the Proprietatea Fund will put an end to the underground trading of its shares and will reveal those who were buying shares on street corners".
Miroslav Merka (the ethnic minorities group): "The Proprietatea Fund should have been listed a long time ago, Romania lost a lot of money on lawsuits"
Adrian Miroslav Merka, a deputy from the group of ethnic minorities, others than the Hungarian minority, and member of the Budget and Finance Commission.
Miroslav Merka said: "The Proprietatea Fund should have been listed a long time ago, because Romania lost a lot of money with litigation, and not just with ECHR. I think there will always be problems and reasons for discontent among those who sold their shares...".
Petru Lakatos (UDMR): "Those who sold their shares before the listing made a mistake"
Petru Lakatos, a deputy of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania and member of the Budget and Finance Commission, considers that people who sold their shares before the listing made a mistake.
Petru Lakatos said: "Concerning the timing of the listing, we couldn"t hold it off anymore. As for the sale of the shares, I think those who sold their shares prior to the listing were too anxious. Something happened in Hungary. Many elderly people had shares in a fund similar to the Proprietatea Fund and sold them cheaply, and after the listing, the price of the shares rose over time. In my opinion, many of those who traded shares in the Fund on the first days knew exactly what to expect".
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