UTI: Investors on the Romanian stock market are short term speculators

• We don"t have regulations that would attract long term investors

Investors on the Romanian stock market are mostly interested in monopolies, such as "Transelectrica", banks and a few industrial companies, which are monopolies as well, considers Tiberiu Urdăreanu, the chairman of UTI, who stressed that his company will not go public in Romania: "Out here, investors aren"t evolved enough and don"t have the appetite for investing in industrial companies. We also lack favorable regulations, that would attract long term investors. The Bucharest Stock Exchange has to many short term speculators and not enough long term investors, such as pension funds. We are interested in long term investments, not in speculation, which is why we want to go to a regional stock exchange, where long term investors and pension funds carry a lot more weight than they do here".

Taking UTI public is an idea that has been considered for a long time, Mr. Urdăreanu said in an interview, "because this growth that we had each year needs to be financed using other sources than our own or investment funds. What"s more, going public is also an efficient way for the investment fund that is currently a shareholder of UTI to make its exit ".

The chairman of UTI said that he is currently reviewing two-three exchanges he views as potential candidates for the listing of his group. Even though the idea of listing the company on a regional stock exchange was adopted about 4-5 years ago, the deadline for the listing was rescheduled for 2013-2014, said Mr. Tiberiu Urdăreanu, who added that, such a step requires a very efficient IT system: "When you decide to go public, you need to attract investors, in other words to make sure investors are confident in your company, you need to have transparency. This can be ensured by having an IT system that allows real-time reporting, following the trail of all the operations, so investors can see what is happening to their money ". A few years ago, UTI concluded a contract with "Oracle", for the distribution of such a system, but its delivery did not take place on time. According to UTI officials, the parts of the system that were delivered proved flawed. In the beginning of this year, the UTI group sued "Oracle", and was forced to postpone its plan to go public.