Ardaf boosts liquidity quotient

The liquidity quotient of the insurance company Ardaf Cluj has gone up to 1.22 following a capital increase performed by its shareholders. When the procedures to bring the company back on track started, this quotient was of 0.33, far lower than 1, the minimal limit required by the regulations of the Insurance Supervision Commission. Ardaf Cluj shareholders on Friday completed the subscription of the capital increase that was doubled to 13.7 million euros (nearly 50.4 million RON). According to Octavian Manastireanu, Ardaf chairman, the old significant shareholders, Tender SA (which owns over 70%) and Clairmont Holdings (which owns over 12%), were joined by Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich (some 6%), and Banca Transilvania (4%). He added that Raiffeisen had started to buy shares this spring. “All that was sold during the reorganisation period, was purchased by Raiffeisen,” Ardaf”s chairman stated. Manastireanu said the difficult financial situation Ardaf was in had been partly caused by the real estate investments it made early in the year, which amount to 26 million RON (over 7.2 million euros). ZF