Globinvest maximises stock investments

The chairman of Cluj-Napoca-based Globinvest, a company that manages four investment funds, plans to attain approximately 37 million euros in assets by 2008.

Globinvest launched Fondul de Actiuni Privat Transilvania (Transilvania Private Equity Fund) this year, its second closed-end fund after the Fondul Privat Comercial (Private Commercial Fund). Globinvest is currently managing two open investment funds, Napoca and Transilvania. Napoca is a fund that invests almost exclusively in listed shares, and has been among the most profitable investment funds over the last few years.

Fondul Privat Comercial was launched in 2003 and its assets stand at more than 4.5 million euros, while its annualised average yield since establishment amounts to 29% in euros.

Globinvest”s chairman, Ilie Cenan, believes that the fund market will exceed one billion euros over the next two to three years. At present, the value of the assets held by the mutual funds in Romania is of more than 100 million euros, and the growth rate of last year was 80% compared with 2004.

“We are permanently monitoring the trend of the markets in the neighbouring countries and believe the situation will be the same in Romania. In Hungary for instance, the mutual fund market exceeds 4 billion euros and in Poland it reaches as much as 7 billion euros,” Cenan says.

“The growth potential of the mutual fund assets is tremendous. Whereas the high interest level of banking interest allowed investors to get profits at low risks until recently, this has changed a great deal now. We estimate more and more investors will go for the fund market in the future, because gains are higher than in the case of bank deposits and risks are lower than in case of stock exchange transactions,” Cenan explained.

Napoca, the equity fund Globinvest manages, owns more than 5.7 million-euro assts and was the second top performing fund on the market last year thanks to its 38.6% yield.

“Our strategy has always been focused on boosting the assets of the funds we manage, as well as attaining a profitability that is higher than the average banking deposit interests. We also tried to develop the existing products and find new ones so that our portfolio would include products for all pocket sizes,” explained Globinvest”s chairman.