Several foreign investment funds keep buying Banca Transilvania shares

Several investment funds or foreign institutional investors have bought some 10% in Banca Transilvania in the past few months. The efforts made by these investors to increase their stakes in the Romanian-based bank have intensified in the last weeks, which has led the Bucharest Stock Exchange brokers to believe that a financial group interested in the bank may be hiding behind these investment funds.

According to market information, all the three financial investment companies (SIFs) that hold stakes in Banca Tansilvania have been contacted about a possible sale of their shares.

At this point, due to the bank’s establishment status, no other stockholder except the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has the right to own more than 5% in the bank’s capital. Beside the bank’s founding members, the only investors with stakes close to 5% are SIF Banat-Crisana and SIF Oltenia. SIF Moldova also owns 2-3 percent of Banca Transilvania shares.

“We have been getting calls from two directions in the past few weeks. From the brokerage companies that want to buy the shares for their clients and from the management of Banca Transilvania, wanting to make sure we would not sell,” an official from one of the three SIFs said under conditions of anonymity.

Brokers say that SIF Moldova is about to reach an agreement to sell its stake in the bank these days.

Due to the intense efforts made by the foreign investment funds, through certain brokerage companies, to buy big stakes in Banca Transilvania, the market is now ripe with rumours about a foreign financial group’s attempt to indirectly secure a significant position in the bank’s shareholding structure. Then, it could use this position to take control over the bank.

“We did notice that, for the past six months, 8-9 foreign investment funds and banks had each bought 1-1.5% in Banca Transilvania. However, I refuse to believe someone is harbouring hostile takeover intentions. I for one believe these are portfolio investments and they are buying because of our past and future growth,” Horia Ciorcila, chairman of the board and one of the founding members of Banca Transilvania told Ziarul Financiar.

Banca Transilvania is one of the last banks in Romania that has not been bought by a European financial group yet. Consequently, interest in the bank has considerably grown in the last year, as many foreign banks willing to enter Romania or expand on this market are mulling the acquisition of Banca Transilvania.

According to market information, Hungarian bank OTP is most keen on taking over Banca Transilvania, after having tried to participate in the privatisation of BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank) and the sale of Banca Tiriac.

The Romanian bank’s founding members currently own 35-40% in capital, whereas EBRD holds a 15% stake. Besides the founding members and the three financial investment companies, there are no other significant shareholders. Which means that, even if EBRD and the three SIFs resolved to sell, takeover could still be very difficult. laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro