The National Investment Fund (FNI) may close its first financial transaction in three and a half years today, although all its accounts were frozen. The fund may sell its stake in steel mill Sidex Galati, under the company's delisting offer run on the Rasdaq market.
The transaction would be most profitable for the fund, but this is small consolation for the investors that have been waiting for more than three years to get back at least part of the money they had invested in FNI. However, the transaction may create a precedent, which could lead to liquidating the stakes held by FNI and dividing the fund's patrimony among the investors.
The fund would cash 6 billion ROL for its Sidex stock, which is almost three times more than the amount originally invested. LNM Holdings offers 14,000 ROL/share, whereas the FNI bought the stock for an average price worth a little more than 5,000 ROL/share.
The decision to sell was made by SOV Invest, the company that also managed the fund before 2000. SOV Invest is still managing the money of FNI investors, but only in name, as both the banking accounts and the stock accounts of the fund were put under sequester.
"SOV Invest, which is still the fund's legal representative, has obtained from the Prosecutor's Office an ordinance on lifting the sequestration on Sidex shares," said Dragos Neacsu, head of Raiffeisen Capital & Investment, the company that managed the public offer. According to Neacsu, the money is to be placed by SOV Invest in banking deposits, which will remain blocked, but the company is also trying to obtain permission to close transactions with the other stakes held by FNI.
The transaction also needs to be okayed by the National Securities Commission (CNVM), which should unfreeze the fund's accounts in the shareholders' registries. "The problem has been analysed today, with the decision most likely to be made on Wednesday," Ciprian Ene, the Commission's spokesperson told Ziarul Financiar. According to Ene, if FNI does not sale its Sidex stock now, it remains a captive investor and would get a smaller price for its stake if it sells it after the offer.
The delisting transaction for Sidex will be reported today. The Indians have managed to attract some 60 million shares worth 840 billion ROL ($25m). The main minority shareholder at Sidex, SIF (Financial Investment Company) Moldova will cash 742 billion ROL ($22m) for its shares. The financial investment company yesterday said the transaction would not trigger a cut in profits or assets, which many brokers feared. vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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