Start of BCR negotiations

The Government has pledged in its third supplementary letter of intent to the stand-by agreement with the IMF to see the sale-purchase contracts for 25% plus two of the Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank – BCR) shares signed with EBRD and IFC until July 31. The negotiations with EBRD and IFC are scheduled for some time in the first half of next month. “We tried a certain procedure, a certain strategy, but to no avail. We tried finding a strategic investor to buy the controlling interests. The unfavourable circumstances on the international banking market made it impossible. This is why we moved on to step two, which entails selling 20 to 25% to two well-known financial institutions, EBRD and IFC,” says Ovidiu Musetescu, head of the Privatisation Authority (APAPS). BCR’s privatisation committee has recently endorsed a set of measures, which Musetescu says are rather technical in nature, required by running such a procedure. “We expect to see negotiations with the two institutions in progress by the end of April-early May. It is hard to specify a deadline at the moment, yet we estimate we may complete negotiations with EBRD and IFC by the end of July,” Musetescu said. ZF