What a difference 0.1% makes

The vice-president of the ASF, Mircea Ursache said he would propose to the Parliament the hiking of the holding limit for the stock exchange to 32.99%, up from its current level of 5%.

Mr. Ursache made this clarification for "BURSA", the information appeared in the media that his proposal was to raise the holding limit to 33%.

At the moment that Mircea Ursache spoke about a holding limit of 33% on the stock market, nobody reacted to say that there is a difference between 33% and 32.99%. According to the law of the stock market, the shareholders that reach 33% of the capital of an issuer are required to perform a takeover bid, to acquire the remaining shares. Therefore, a threshold of 33% would be nonsensical, according to the current terms of the law.

Market sources told us that the talks about the holding limits for the SIFs and the stock exchanges have intensified and several possible options were used.

Mircea Ursache said yesterday that he is proposing the amendment of the holding limit for the market operator and the SIFs.

• Sobolewski: "A chance for the concentration of the shareholder structure"

The CEO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, Ludwik Sobolewski, considers that the hiking of the holding limit on the Bucharest Stock Exchange represents a positive change. He told us: "This will create a chance for the concentration of the shareholder structure, which should support the very ambitious strategy for the stock market, represented by the BSE".

At the SIFs, the opinions on the possibility of the raise of the holding limit are divided.

Costel Ceocea, the CEO of SIF2 Moldova, told us that he was not surprised by the proposals of Mr. Ursache.

"Talks on this issue have been a constant, for a long time now, in the market", he said: "This kind of ideas have always been debated by evaluating their impact. Measures that would lift the restrictions, which would be left exclusively at the discretion of the shareholders, are good".

On the other hand, Dragoş Bîlteanu, the CEO of SIF1 "Banat-Crişana", and Tudor Ciurezu, the CEO of SIF5 "Oltenia", preferred not to comment on the proposals of Mircea Ursache.

Tudor Ciurezu told us: "I would rather abstain. There are two sides with very differing opinions about the change of the holding limit - one that wants its elimination and one that wants an evolution of natural expansion for the SIFs. I don't know which one will win in the end".

The holding limit in the five SIFs was amended in January 2012, from 1% to 5%, even though the initial draft was intended to lift the holding limit per shareholder.