SIF "Muntenia" hopes that "Franklin Templeton" will actively get involved in the management of "Romaero"

• The Proprietatea Fund is the second significant minority shareholder of "Romaero", after SIF4, with a stake of 21%

Financial Investment Company "Muntenia", which holds about 25% of the shares of "Romaero" Bucharest (symbol:RORX), hopes it will have a successful cooperation with the new manager of the Proprietatea Fund on the Board of the aircraft company in order to help restore the company"s former glory.

Petre Pavel Szel, the chairman of SAI Muntenia, and Marius Pădureanu, the representative of the Proprietatea Fund on the Board of Directors of "Romaero", yesterday attended the 90-year anniversary of the aeronautical company, together with a representative of "Franklin Templeton", as well as former employees and members of the company"s management.

The Proprietatea Fund holds 21% of "Romaero", which makes it the second largest minority shareholder of the company, after SIF4. The Ministry of the Economy holds 51.9% of the company.

"I suppose we will get along better with the Proprietatea Fund than we did with the representatives of the state, which we rarely managed to agree with on the way the company should have been managed", Petre Pavel Szel said for "BURSA" yesterday. He added: "In "90, Romaero was capable of fully building a plane all by itself, and now all it does is fix aircraft parts every now and then.

There were several cases where we had concrete proposals for developing the company, but we couldn"t get them approved. I have a bad opinion on the company"s current situation, given what it could have become after 1990. We are however glad it hasn"t gone under, due to the fact that the state had a positive attitude towards it".

In fact, SIF "Muntenia" hopes that "Franklin Templeton" will adopt a policy of active management of Romaero that it implemented in the case of "Romgaz", where it has opposed the plan of the state to force the company to donate 400 million lei to the state budget, or like it implied it would at "Hidroelectrica", where it criticized the high production costs.

Marius Pădureanu, the representative of the Proprietatea Fund on the Board of Directors of "Romaero", said that but declined to comment further, saying he was empowered to do so.

Prior to 1989, "Romaero" was one of the largest domestic aeronautical companies, but the state of the company has significantly degraded over the past few years, including due to the fact that the state has cut back on its investments in the domestic aeronautical industry.

In the first nine months of the year, "Romaero" had a profit of just 201,000 lei, similar to the profit it had at the end of the similar period of 2009, while its turnover amounted to almost 40 million lei. The company reported operating revenues of 61 million lei, down compared the first three quarters of 2009, and operating revenues of 54 million lei.

• 90 years of activity, celebrated on the same day as the Day of the International Civilian Aviation

Some of the most important former managers of "Romaero", notable employees, which had been retired for a long time and representatives of the authorities, yesterday attended the 90 year anniversary of the company, which was a good opportunity to travel down memory lane and talk about the airplanes that the company used to build.

Dan Drăgoi, the father of secretary of state Bogdan Drăgoi, and one of the former managing directors of "Romaero", yesterday, recounted how he dedicated ten years of his life to the company, which he joined right after graduating the university and where he stayed until the early nineties.

Victor Smirnov, who served as the managing director of "Romaero" in the early nineties, spoke about the heyday of the company and of the domestic aeronautical industry.

"In the 70s, Romaero had about 8,300 employees. The Romanian aeronautical industry was extremely well developed at the time, as it employed almost 36,000 people. Romania had several aircraft factories, located in Bacău, Braşov, Craiova, Bucharest...Now the industry is a wreck", Victor Smirnov said. In his opinion, "Romaero" is only valuable because of the plot of land with a surface of almost 40 hectares that it owns, which makes it attractive to some businesspeople operating in the real estate business: "

"In the early nineties, I met an important businessman who I wanted to convince to restart aircraft production, and he told me to stop struggling, as the plot of land that the factory sits on is the only valuable asset that the company still has", he said, regretfully.

"Romaero" is currently one of the certified suppliers of "Boeing", IAI, Spirit Aerosystems , Bombardier Aerospace. The company also provides aircraft maintenance and repair services. Since 2003, "Romaero" operates as a national center for the repairs, maintenance and upgrading of "Lockheed Martin C-130" military that the Romanian Military is equipped with.