Ilie Carabulea: We are boosting the Capital of Carpatica, just like other banks did

Ilie Carabulea, the largest shareholder of Bănca Comercială Carpatica (symbol: BCC), says that the money that the bank expects to raise following the share capital increase by 103 million lei, which will be submitted for the approval of shareholders on March 13th, will be used to consolidate the bank"s position on the domestic market.

Mr. Carabulea made the following statement for BURSA: "We will use the funds to support our banking operations, since all the major foreign banks boosted the capital of their Romanian banks. Even though we do not have a parent bank, we do have parent shareholders."

Ilie Carabulea says that BCC weathered the crisis without issues, but it now needs support to continue to expand: "The solvency ratio of the bank is 12.49%, above the 10% requirement of the Central Bank, it"s doing well and is financially stable. We did not boost our share capital during the crisis because we didn"t need it".

In early October 2009, the Board of the bank appointed Nicolae Surdu as general manager, replacing Nicolaie Hoanţă, who was also the CEO, and at the same time approved a dual management of the bank, which is now led by a directorate and a supervisory council.

At the end of October, George Ciobănaşu was appointed as deputy general manager.

"We want to do more for the bank, it"s not enough to change the management team, if we don not provide it with additional resources", said Mr. Carabulea.

He said that BCC needs stronger support, both in terms of capital and "know-how", if it is to surpass its current market share. Therefore he said he wouldn"t rule out a foreign bank participating in the recently suggested share capital increase.

"There were no concrete negotiations to sell the banks. But if a foreign bank decided to participate in the share capital increase, I wouldn"t turn them down", Ilie Carabulea said.

"Banca Comercială Carpatica" has a market capitalization of 234.91 million lei, according to yesterday"s closing price of 0.103 lei/share.

Ilie Carabulea owns 36.45% of the bank, and Alin Albu owns close to 10%.