Asirom forced to accept minority shareholders

The chairman of Asirom”s Board of Directors, Nicolae Iliuta, will have to call a General Meeting of Shareholders by April 6 to have members of the Board of Directors elected by cumulative voting, according to an ordinance issued last week by the National Securities Commission (CNVM). As a matter of fact, market sources say that Iliuta was penalised by the CNVM for not applying the method of cumulative voting when the members of the Board of Directors were chosen in the first place. InterAgro SA, the principal shareholder of Asirom, said, “We feel we are dealing with a severe case of stock market manipulation by the Broadhurst representatives, the QVT Fund (an illegal shareholder, not approved by the Insurance Supervision Commission) and by an individual, Dan Barbulescu.” The company added that it had notified the CNVM to take all the legal steps that apply in this case. Cumulative voting allows minority shareholders to be represented in the management of a company, having the possibility to put their votes their votes together and give them to one candidate. The main minority shareholders, Broadhurst fund and QTV fund jointly own over 25% of the shares, which will allow them to choose one member in the company”s managing team, since the Board of Directors must have at least five members. Asirom”s management will also have to call for a General Meeting of Shareholders within a month, whose agenda will be to discuss whether to validate or to change the decision to delist Asirom. This decision was taken in the General Meeting, which took place at the beginning of January, but the CNVM decided that it had not met legal conditions. ZF