The General Meetings of Shareholders of the five financial investment companies (SIFs) at the end of last week did not produce the surprises some of the investors on the Bucharest Stock Exchange expected.
Four of the SIFs had election of new Board of Directors on their agendas, while two had proposed their shareholders to raise the stake cap from 0.1% to 1%. The SIFsa?? Boards remained relatively unchanged, and a decision about the stake cap could not be made.
The agenda also included the endorsement of the financial statements, setting the dividends, as well as the spending and revenue budgets for this year.
The gross dividends endorsed by the SIFsa?? General Meetings range between 500 and 650 ROL/share. SIF Banat-Crisana and SIF Muntenia will pay 500 ROL/share gross dividends, while SIF Moldova will pay 600 ROL. SIF Transilvania and SIF Oltenia will disburse the highest dividends of all, 650 ROL/share. The five SIFs are therefore to pay nearly 50 million euros in dividends this year.
One of the most agitated General Meetings was that of SIF Muntenia, where the agenda included the possibility to stop using the services of Muntenia Invest, a company that manages this SIFa??s portfolio and was left chairman-less this month due to Theodor Mihaescu being recalled. Although the attending shareholders accounted for only 18% of the share capital of the company, and a decision was therefore impossible to make, they argued for several hours on this topic, some of them mentioning the low performance and the high costs involved in having the portfolio managed by a specialised company. A new chairman for Muntenia Invest is to be elected by shareholders at the end of this week.
The increase in the stake cap was on the agenda of SIF Moldova and Oltenia, yet attendance at the second General Meeting called was 30% and 26% compared with at least 50% as required by the legislation for modifying the status.
Despite the lack of quorum, SIF Moldova held a consultative voting to raise the cap, with the attending shareholders agreeing to the taking of such a step some time in the future.
Many SIF investors see the raising of the cap as a measure that will make a positive impact on the shares, with their price going up every time the raising of the cap has been discussed in the last few years.
According to the latest statements from the chairman of the Senatea??s Budget and Finance Committee, Varujan Vosganian, the SIF stake cap will be modified to 5% by law.
The attempt of several Slovenian citizens, all of whom SIF Banat-Crisana shareholders, to penetrate the companya??s Board of Directors failed, as the entire Board along with its chairman Ioan Cuzman was re-elected for a new term.
Several dozen Czech, Slovak and Slovenian investors have bought into SIF Banat-Crisana and SIF Transilvania in the last year, and are said to represent Brookdale Funds and American businessman Howard Golden.
The Czechs had succeeded in having two of the seven members of the SIF Transilvania board appointed last year, who were reelected on Saturday along with the entire Board, due to the lack of competition.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro