First negative vote for Templeton: Shareholders approve dividends as proposed by Finance Ministry

A number of Fondul Proprietatea (Property Fund – FP) shareholders voiced their dissatisfaction about the trend of the stock price on the Bourse during the General Meeting of Shareholders yesterday, demanding explanations from the fund manager, Franklin Templeton.

The FP shares have recently dropped below the 0.58 lei mark, trading for 42% below the 1 leu level at which the state converted the compensation deeds into shares. In other words, those that had to get 1 million lei from the state as compensation for the properties seized by the communist regime would get 1 million FP shares until early this year. Since the floatation on the BSE on January 25, the shares have been trading for 0.61 lei on the average, whcih means the former owners could only recoup 61% of the amount of compensation received from the state.

They are afraid that once the conversion of the compensation deeds into shares is resumed on May 2, the price of the FP shares on the Bourse will continue to go down. Those getting shares as of May 2 will get them at the average price on the BSE over the last sixty days, that is about 0.6045 lei, which means, those entitled to 1 million lei compensation will get more shares (about 1.65 million).

Shareholders’ dissatisfaction also showed in the voting of the third item on the agenda, the dividend disbursement. They voted 99% in favour of the Finance Ministry’s proposition to disburse a 0.03141 lei/share gross dividend, double the amount proposed by Franklin Templeton, 0.01569 lei/share.

The Fund will thus pay about 432 million lei to the shareholders, almost 160 million lei of which will go to the Finance Ministry, which owns 36.7% in it.