Mobius, unaware of the request to decapitalize the BSE

The rumors that "Franklin Templeton" was one of the shareholders that requested the decapitalization of the BSE yesterday took by surprise Mark Mobius himself, the head of "Franklin Templeton" (FT), who implied, in a press conference, that he had no knowledge of the company he leads having made such a request.

On April 12th, the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) announced that it has received three requests to add three new items to the agenda of the General Shareholder Meeting of the BSE which will take place this Friday. Some of the shareholders of the BSE are requesting the reduction of the share capital of the BSE by lowering the face value of its shares from 10 to 5 lei and distributing the resulting amounts to shareholders in the form of an extraordinary dividend.

At the time, Grzegorz Konieczny, the executive vice-president of Franklin Templeton, refused to confirm or deny the rumors which suggested that Franklin Templeton was one of the shareholders that had submitted this request, saying it was not the policy of Franklin Templeton to comment on market rumors.

Yesterday, Mark Mobius did not rule out the idea of Franklin Templeton having made this request, saying that some of the decisions are made upon analyst recommendations.

"Some of our investment decisions are recommended by analysts. I do not know what our analysts recommended in this case", Mobius said yesterday.

The management of the BSE has decided that the request to decapitalize the Exchange will be discussed in a meeting of the Board of Directors of the BSE, with the administrators of the BSE still to decide on whether they will summon a General Shareholder Meeting in which they would put it up for voting.