The stake of the Romanian state in the Proprietatea Fund could fall to 14.23%

• In the first half of July, the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties has issued conversion deeds for 4.7% of the shares of the Proprietatea Fund

Between July 1st-July 18th, the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties (ANRP) has remitted to the Central Depository 422 conversion deeds, for the transfer of blocks of shares representing 4.67% of the shares of the Proprietatea Fund (symbol: FP) from the Ministry of Finance to the accounts of 577 people, according to Mediafax.

As a result, the state"s stake in the Proprietatea Fund would be reduced from 18.9% to 14.23%.

According to the ANRP, the largest conversion deed issued to an individual investor accounts for 0.06% of the shares of the Proprietatea Fund, and was worth 4.4 million lei, (over 1 million Euros) on the date of its issue.

When calculating the value of the block, the ANRP used an average weighted price of 0.5289 lei/share.

The officials of the ANRP have said that they are reviewing and verifying the submitted documents in 293 files.

The officials of the ANRP have also said that the institution has not modified the order in which the deeds for the payment of compensation and/or for the conversion into shares o the Proprietatea are being issued in, even though the Government granted it this right.

"Until now, our institution has not honored any of the requests to issue conversion deeds on a medical or social case basis, provided the documentary evidence in this respect has been submitted. The conversion deeds were issued and transmitted to the Central Depository in the order that the option briefs were remitted to the option cases", the reply of the Authority states.

On Wednesday, a Government Decision was published in the Official Gazette which amended GO 1638/2008 which decided that the Proprietatea Fund would receive the amounts recouped by the Romanian state from its foreign debtors. Any mention of the Proprietatea Fund was eliminated from the decision.

In October last year, the Government issued an ordinance by which it decided that the recouped out of Romania"s claims towards foreign debtors would not be transferred to the Proprietatea Fund, and would instead go directly to the state budget.