Another respite for BTR

Banca Turco-Romana (Turkish-Romanian Bank – BTR) has several weeks left to manage the liquidity issue and find viable solutions to meet obligations towards its clients. Afterwards, the National Bank of Romania (NBR) will decide whether the bank may continue its activity or be declared bankrupt.

After having assessed the action plan submitted by Turkish-Romanian Bank main shareholder, Bayindir Holdings, NBR Management Board decided not to initiate BTR bankruptcy proceedings yet and grant the bank a few weeks so that it could apply the measures pledged in the above-mentioned document.

“This term is quite relative, meaning less than one month, and allowing us to draw daily and exigent assessments on the way the Turkish-Romanian Bank meets its obligations towards the clients.

BTR management team has worked hard to cover the bank’s dues and 67 million dollars in cash were brought so far, unlike other troubled banks that have come up with fake solutions,” Adrian Vasilescu, advisor to the NBR Governor, maintained.

He feels that BTR’s main problem is finding a solution to keep honouring dues to its clients. “The bank’s soundness will be subsequently assessed. It largely depends on the bank’s ability to restore the capital, which has been actually absorbed by the payments made lately,” Vasilescu added.

Adriana Ahciarliu, Turkish-Romanian Bank spokesperson, replied that “we appreciate the National Bank’s decision to support us and we will certainly continue implementing the restructuring plan in order to restore the bank’s normal activity. As I have previously stated, we will focus on asset sales and compensations. Moreover, the bank has only 173 employees now, against 800 before, and we sold 13 subsidiaries.”

BTR restructuring plan includes some compensations to be granted for the deposits kept in the bank, allowing it to save more than 680.65 billion lei (about 24.57 million dollars).

Attempting to get off the hook, the bank’s management team decided to sell and compensate its former clients with anything possible, from offices, subsidiaries, villas and lands to vehicles, mobile phones and ATMs.