Waverton Investments changes Petros manager

(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 6)

The Dutch company Waverton Investments BV, the new owner of Petros Ploiesti company, announced that the General Assembly of Shareholders on February 24 approved the modification of the company’s constitutive act and the election of a new management board. The most important changes made to the company’s statute, according to a press release published at the beginning of this week, are the registration of the company’s privatisation (that is, the registration of Waverton Investments as shareholder with a stake of 70.4 percent), the adoption of the Bucharest Stock Market’s official register as the company’s register and the conditions required for convoking the General Assembly of Shareholders. The same assembly approved the replacement of the company’s manager and the election of the new management board. The new management board’s structure approved by the company’s shareholders, according to Petros release will include the representatives of Waverton Investments’, as well as those of Rompetrol from Bucharest and Rometrol Rafinare – Vega Refinery from Prahova. Waverton Investments BV over the second half of January purchased the main stake from the Finance Ministry, that had organised a tender on the Bucharest Stock Market. Petros has a share capital of 23.07 billion lei divided into shares with a nominal value of 25,000 lei. The company is entirely privately owned, the main stake being held by Waverton Investments BV (70.4 percent). The other shares of the company are held by shareholders resulted from the mass privatisation programme, the former manager (0.01 percent) and the current manager (0.11 percent). Over the first eight months of 1999, the company’ obtained a net profit of 20.30 billion lei for a turnover of 109.25 billion lei. Its total debt amounted to 143.4 billion lei over the same period of time. In 1998, the company posted a turnover of 183.28 billion lei, and its losses amounted to 3.82 billion lei. The company did not grant dividends over the last two years. Petros operates in the energy sector producing liquid nitrogen for oil industry and offering maintenance services for oil extraction equipment. Petros shares have been traded on the second tier of the Bucharest Stock Market since June 18, 1998, the reference price registered over the last trading session on February 22, being 7,000 lei/share.