BA privatisation only on paper

As the Government has failed to settle the litigation regarding Banca Agricola (Agricultural Bank-BA), filed by the Financial Investment Companies (SIFs) against the Privatisation Authority (APAPS), the first suit scheduled to take place yesterday, but which was again postponed for one week, confirms that BA privatisation is not effective yet.

The highly publicised privatisation contract signed two months ago with the consortium made up of Austria’s Raiffeisenbank and the Romanian American Investment Fund (FRAI) is blocked for the time being.

BA dispute is now focusing on the lawsuits filed by SIF Muntenia and SIF Banat (two minority shareholders, i.e.) against BA main shareholder.

The plaintiffs contested BA share capital increase of about 6,500 billion lei, requested by those having purchased the main stake.

SIFs decision stirred quite a controversy, as a lawsuit could take a long time and one of the contractual conditions was that the share capital increase should be quickly concluded.

“We did not expect the government to have such a passive attitude regarding BA situation. We would like the officials to get involved more in order to finalise this lawsuit, which has already taken a long time. We thought some discussions with SIFs would take place so that they could be offered some compensations in order to put an end to this affair. It is obvious that nobody stopped to consider the fact that no payment has been made yet and the transaction may fail anytime (…),” sources within the consortium told Ziarul Financiar.