Privatisation of Banca Agricola (The Agricultural Bank - BA) has reached a deadlock and it may be delayed because of the Financial Investment Companies (SIF), which together own 28% in the bank's stock. They dispute certain decisions made by the bank's management and are trying to push SOF (the State Ownership Fund) and the Government, so as to get out of this deal without posting any losses.
SIFs want to use the delay in BA privatisation so as to obtain, in exchange for their shares in the bank, stakes in the financial-banking field, respectively stock in BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank), Banc Post, or some insurance companies such as Asirom or Astra.
"It looks like SIFs have won their lawsuits against us so far, but everyone stands to lose in this conflict. The fight among shareholders, together with obstacles erected by SIFs, can only compromise the entire privatisation process," Eugen Radulescu, president of BA Management Board, told Ziarul Financiar.
SIF Oltenia, speaking for the other SIFs as well, contested the 10-fold cut in BA share capital, from 1,081 billion lei to 108 billion lei, and the court ruled in favour of the investment company. On the other hand, in another lawsuit, the five SIFs are contesting the activity of the Management Board, ever since it was appointed.
"Financial Investment Companies have nothing against the central bank and privatisation. We have filed two legal suits: one because we did not agree with the 1,000 billion lei cut in the bank's capital and the second because we believe that, although the National Bank of Romania set up a Management Board for Banca Agricola that was meant to clean the bank and curb losses, the bank is in a desperate situation. Thus, we asked for the designation of three experts to draft feasibility studies for Banca Agricola, so that we can see the real situation and the sources of losses, and we were successful," said Mihai Fercala, the president of SIF Transilvania.
He says that financial investment companies have been eliminated from the race ever since the beginning, they were not consulted about anything, while the decision to diminish the bank's capital was made without the approval of its shareholders.
"We do not want to be held responsible for the critical situation the bank has reached. We are forced to defend our patrimonial integrity. We do not want to be held responsible as it happens now with those who knew about some irregularities (FNI case) and did not reveal them," the president of SIF Transilvania added.
After losing in Bancorex case, SIFs are now attempting to get something out of BA privatisation. Although they have not noticed for some time the difficulties occurred within the two banks, SIFs wish to come out clean-handed at least from Banca Agricola deal. The main question is where were the SIFs when the difficulties of the two banks were signaled, before 1996 and after that? The Government has to privatise Banca Agricola this year, as otherwise even its bankruptcy may be taken into discussion. "At this time, the ones that initially displayed interest in attending the privatisation process and started to conduct feasibility studies are a little messed-up. They do not know what to think. To conclude, I believe that SIFs will take upon themselves the entire failure of privatisation, if we come to this," Radulescu stated. Back in 1992, SIFs were granted 30% of state-owned commercial banks. Although banks privatisation law initially stipulated that SIFs no longer should hold stakes in banks, they threatened to block all privatisation processes unless their shares were maintained. The banks were the best assets in their portfolio.
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