Eforie minority shareholders rebel against SIF Transilvania

What is the best way for a minority shareholder to be as well represented within the management of a listed company as possible? The answer: the absence of the majority stakeholder during elections for the managing board.

On Tuesday, a group of minority shareholders from the Eforie tourism company appointed all the members of the company’s board despite the fact that they hold a mere 0.18% stake.

Eforie’s management had convened a meeting of the General Assembly of Shareholders (AGA), but the company’s main stakeholder, SIF Transilvania, controlling 85% of stock, did not send its representative.

“At the second convening, we were able to choose the members of the board, irrespective of the quorum,” Dan Paul, one of Eforie’s minority shareholders who was on Tuesday designated as member of the board, told Ziarul Financiar. He also stated that the new management of the company had been mandated by shareholders to stop the sale of the company’s assets.

Over the last few months, Eforie has sold several hotels and restaurants as part of a restructuring programme that will be followed by a merger with other companies owned by SIF Transilvania in the tourism field. Some of Eforie’s minority shareholders were dissatisfied with the sale of such assets.

Dan Paul is chairman of the bourse brokerage company Finaco Securities and is known as one of the most vocal opponents of the current management teams of financial investment companies (SIF).

In recent years, he has sued the management of SIF Transilvania in his capacity as shareholder of the company.

SIF Transilvania in its turn offered a reply: the management elected by the minority shareholder of Eforie is not legal since the General Assembly of Shareholders was not in fact convened.

vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro