THE 3RD EDITION OF THE "FINANCING THROUGH THE STOCK MARKET CONFERENCE " / MARIAN PETRE MILUŢ, PREFAB: "The capital market isn't working because there is no money on the stock exchange"

The Romanian capital market isn't working and this is happening because there is no money on the stock exchange, says Marian Petre Miluţ, the president of Prefab.

He said: "Investors are being driven away if the business sector is unfriendly, and in Romania, the business segment has gone back to what it was 15 years ago - it is unfriendly and unpredictable".

According to the Prefab official, in the last few years, the price of fuel has doubled, utilities have become more expensive, the "pole tax" was implemented, and this type of measures has made the business segment in Romania "unpredictable and unstable".

"It is elementary for an entrepreneur to be able to raise capital on the stock exchange, not to transfer blocks of shares", says Mr. Miluţ, who stresses the fact that the Romanian economy will only start working when the domestic capital will start receiving support. Right now, nothing fits in Romania and that is why there is no interest in the market, Marian Miluţ further said.

In his opinion, the European grants are "a flop": Romanian entrepreneurs can't access European grants because of the "crazy red tape in the administration", which "should stop".

"We can't go on, in the essence of money, of the stock market, of the financial system, if we do not provide support to the foundation, companies", says the president of Prefab, who went on to say: "You can't make money from money. This bubble, of making money from money, has destroyed the world's economy. That's where the crisis started from".

Romania should have a GDP of 400-500 billion Euros, but it should get help, he further says, and he added: "We can't make money in a market that is hostile to the business segment".

Marian Petre Miluţ would not recommend entrepreneurs to invest on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, and he stressed that the confidence of Romanian businesspeople in the Romanian government is zero.

"My company, Prefab, which is listed on the first tier of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, has lost money at Deveselu (ed. note: where Prefab is the provider of construction materials). The Romanian and the American government did not pay me the money. (...) They claimed that they have transferred the responsibilities to a company in Turkey".

In this context, Mr. Miluţ says that Electrica, a state company listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, as no credibility with investors.

He also thinks that aside from unstable legislation and the uncertainty of the businesspeople that they would get back their investments, the political events (more specifically the conflict between the president, the prime-minister and the president of the Senate) are another cause for the lack of confidence of the investors that could develop business in Romania.

Founded in 1967 as the Construction Materials Plant of Călăraşi and restructured in 1990 as Prefab SA, the company led by Marian Petre Miluţ was privatized in 1998.

Listed in July 2010 on the first tier of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the company has 285 million lei in assets, according to data on its own website.