Romanian National Securities Commission (CNVM) forces "Avicola" Braşov to cancel its decision to delist from the Rasdaq market

The Romanian National Securities Commission forced the managers of Avicola Braşov to summon a meeting of the shareholders of the company in order to cancel their decision to delist the company from the Rasdaq market, given the fact that the operation did not comply with the capital market legislation. On September 30, the CNVM issued an ordinance on this subject, with the company being required to summon the General Meeting of Shareholders within 15 days after the issue of the ordinance.

On August 18th, the shareholders of the company had approved the plan to delist the company from the Rasdaq market, even though at the end of July, the CNVM had decided that the operation could not be performed because the liquidity requirements for taking the company private were not met. In that meeting, the shareholders of the company also set the price per share that the company planned to pay to investors who disagreed with the delisting of the company (3.03 lei/share, below the price on the Rasdaq market).

However, this caused the Association of Stock Market Investors to file a petition to the CNVM requesting that the latter issue a ruling against the decision.

According to domestic stock market legislation, a company can be delisted following a takeover bid, if the stock of the company has seen less than 50 trades in the 12 months prior to the announcement of the plan to remove the company from the exchange, excluding trades between insiders, and a trading turnover of less than 1% of the company"s capital. Furthermore, only a shareholder that controls more than 95% of the company has the right to ask the other shareholders to sell their stock in the company, prior to the delisting of the company in question. Ioan Popa, the owner, managing director and chairman of the Board of Directors of Transavia Alba-Iulia, holds 70.82% of the stock of Avicola. The CNVM repeatedly demanded that Ioan Popa submit the paperwork needed to perform the mandatory takeover bid for Avicola, as is required of shareholders that control more than 33% of a company.