What chances former owners on ANRP lists stand to get FP dividends

The record high dividends of above 1.1bn RON Fondul Proprietatea (Property Fund – FP) is set to award are likely to be the first cash compensation the former owners get after having waited for years on the lists of the National Authority for Property Restitution (ANRP).

Starting July 1, the Government suspended cash compensations to former owners over a two-year period, during which compensations are exclusively awarded in form of FP stock, pursuant to Ordinance 62/2010.
As FP this year distributes 1.1bn RON or 0.0816 RON/share record dividends, the stake of becoming a Fund shareholder by September 27, the shareholder registration date, has also risen for the former owners who initially opted for cash compensations.
The former owners who initially opted for cash can either wait until 2012, or change their option from cash to stock.
“A big problem is that the people who initially opted for cash have been waiting for years to get the money, with waiting lists getting to as many as 13,000 files. And the Government comes and suspends cash compensations for another two years given that had the former owners opted for stock compensations from the start, they would have been collecting dividends since as early as 2007 (…),” said lawyer Iulian Lepa.