ING Nederlanden eyes SNP Petrom shares

ING Nederlanden, the largest life insurance company in Romania and the only firm in this field managing a stock portfolio on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), is eyeing SNP Petrom. SNP Petrom shares were listed on the Stock Exchange this summer and came to stand for 12% of ING Nederlanden stock portfolio.

“We selected SNP Petrom shares as the company has a large capitalisation and because it meets the profile of attractive companies ING Nederlanden is interested in,” company sources said.

Moreover, the company in October began to acquire Antibiotice shares, which now stand for 5.3% of ING Nederlanden stock portfolio. ING Nederlanden has been investing on the Stock Exchange since October 1998, when it launched the life insurance policies with Unit-Linked investment, a premiere in Romania.

The main feature of these products is that part of the premiums cashed from the clients are invested under ING Nederlanden investment programme, divided into units for which buy/buyback quotations are set daily.

These programmes are actually financial asset portfolios including state bonds, short-term banking deposits and shares.

ING Nederlanden administrates two such ROL-denominated investment programmes: Treasury Bills and Mixt. The first programme includes treasury bills issued by the Finance Ministry, short-term ROL-denominated banking deposits and liquidity in current accounts.

The units of this investment programme increased by 38.9% between January 1 and November 11, 2001, amid 24.1% inflation rate for the first ten months of the year. The value of assets managed by this programme stood at 345 billion ROL on September 31.

The other programme, Mixt, includes treasury bonds issued by the Finance Ministry, short-term banking deposits, liquidity in current accounts and shares traded on BSE, standing for about one quarter of the assets.

The assets of this fund stood at 129.1 billion ROL at the end of October, against 90.5 billion ROL at the end of the previous month.