Broker waiting to float

SSIF Broker’s management expects to be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) by the end of next week at the latest. “We submitted all the papers to the BSE and registered the modification of the share capital; now we are only waiting for the stock exchange listing committee to convene,” stated Petru Prunea, company chairman. SSIF Broker will be the first securities company to be floated on the capital market after putting out an IPO last year with a view to going public. The shares offered were oversubscribed by a ratio of 3 to 1. The company management maintains that its previous statements regarding a 28,000-30,000 ROL share price in the first day of listing were reasonable considering the financial situation of the company. SSIF Broker is one of the most active brokers on the stock exchange and was ranked second on the market last year, with a 7.2% market share. It brokered transactions worth 3,491.4bn ROL (86.2 million euros) in 2004. ZF