Three SIFs beyond expectations

Three of the financial investment companies (SIF) made profits beyond the expectations of the Stock Exchange investors in January, albeit the first month of the year is usually regarded as slow in terms of transactions on the capital market and the dividends for the companies in the portfolio will not be collected sooner than this summer. The record goes to SIF Oltenia, which logged 95.2bn ROL ($3 million) profit in January, one third of the entire last year profit. The profit was almost entirely due to one transaction, as the company officials say. It is about the sale of the 20.7% Comcereal Alexandria stake to US-based Cargill for 184bn ROL during the latter’s tender offer. Next in line is SIF Banat-Crisana, whose profit was of 54.4bn ROL ($1.7 million), although the only significant transaction it reported in January was not the sale but the acquisition of a tourism company, EuroHotel in Timisoara, for 1.5 million euros. SIF Transilvania concluded January with 28.3bn ROL profit, and its most important transaction in that month was the sale of a hotel. It is about the 99% in Felicia Hotel in the Venus resort for 25.5bn ROL (0.6 million euros), while the profit derived from this transaction amounted to more than 20bn ROL. The laggard of the pack was SIF Muntenia, which logged 10bn ROL losses in January. SIF Moldova made 19bn ROL profit in the same period of time. ZF