Who are the shareholders who have requested the General Shareholder Meeting of the FICs

• Radu Hanga, BT Asset Management: "It is in the common interest of all the shareholders of the SIFs to have a common strategy concerning BCR"

The list of shareholders who on Tuesday, requested that the SIFs hold General Shareholder Meetings in order to discuss the launch of the listing of BCR on the Stock Exchange, includes investors who are active on the domestic capital market, such as funds managed by Aviva, ING, Certinvest, BT Asset Management, Raiffeisen Asset Management, STK Financial and SAI Carpatica, together with "Firebird", "Broadhurst" and brokerage firm "Broker" Cluj.

SIF "Moldova" and SIF "Muntenia" have revealed the names of the shareholders who have requested the summoning of the General Shareholder Meeting, whereas SIF "Transilvania" and SIF "Oltenia" only said that they have received the requests to summon the General Shareholder Meeting and that they are reviewing them. SIF "Moldova" also announced that an extraordinary session of the Board of Directors was summoned today.

Fund managers contacted by BURSA have clarified that their request came as BCR is the most important asset in the portfolio of the SIFs, and they would like to have a say in what happens with it, especially since this autumn, the two year period by which the listing of the bank on the BSE was postponed will expire.

"There is no concrete information about the plans of the SIFs concerning their most important interest, but there are however statements that suggest that the SIFs have diverging interests concerning their stake in BCR", said Radu Hanga, the general manager of BT Asset Management, who added: "Or, this is essential, because if some of the SIFs decided not to sell their stake in BCR could have a major impact on what the stakes that the other SIFs have in BCR would be worth.

From our point of view, it is in the interest of all the shareholders of the SIFs that the SIFs have a common strategy when it comes to BCR, at least until the bank gets listed. Summoning the General Shareholder Meeting is intended to bring into discussion this subject which would allow shareholders to be informed and to express their position."

The listing of BCR became a hot button topic as early as a few months back, when SIF "Moldova" tried to obtain the approval of shareholders to sell their stake in BCR, but did not meet the quorum needed for the General Extraordinary Shareholder Meeting to be held. In order to avoid a repeat of such a situation, the shareholders of the SIFs have requested the summoning of the General Ordinary Shareholder Meeting, which would also have on the agenda, among other things, empowering the directors of the SIFs to request a General Shareholder Meeting of BCR in order to initiate the steps needed to list the bank on the Stock Exchange.

Mihail Ion, the president and general manager of "Raiffeisen Asset Management", one of those who signed the requests to summon the General Shareholder Meeting, claims that it is in the interest of investors in the funds managed by Raiffeisen Asset Management that a large part of the portfolio of the SIFs become liquid, and that the value of BCR be reflected at its market value in the net assets of the SIFs.

Mr. Ion said that because the moment wasn"t adequate for listing the bank in 2009, at the time there was no one interested in taking an action similar to the current one: "2009 probably wasn"t a good moment for the listing of BCR, especially since the market had just experienced a major correction. 2012 is definitely better than 2009 for doing that. The international context may look unfavorable, with lots of public offerings that had been postponed, but on an international level, the financial statements of many companies are looking good, with surpluses, which will encourage mergers and acquisitions, stock buybacks, dividend payments, etc, in other words there is a lot of potential for the stock market".

Florin Keran, deputy managing director of SAI Carpatica, said that the request to summon the General Shareholder Meetings of the SIFs came as the Investment Management Companies (SAI) are increasingly trying to get involved in the decision making process of the SIFs.

"We are trying to watch carefully every move that the SIFs make which could have an impact on their portfolio. It is a good thing for the shareholders to decide how their holdings could be exploited", said Florin Keran.