Romania Says Eight Cos Vie to Run its Property Restitution Fund

The bidders, as posted on the fund's website, are:

- AVIVA Global Services

- Blackrock

- Credit Suisse & OTP

- FINAG Holding GmbH

- Franklin Templeton Investments

- ING Invest Management

- Morgan Stanley

- Julius Baer

“Our intention is to select a single fund manager, but we do not exclude the possibility of selecting more than one,” Proprietatea’s director general Daniela Lulache said last year.

The fund has been scheduled for bourse listing in the first half of 2009, but Lulache has said that the move might be postponed due to unfavourable market conditions.

The Proprietatea fund, set up in 2005, was designed to compensate pre-communist owners whose property can not be restored in its original form. It held stakes in 88 companies from the banking, energy, telecommunications, utility and other industries at the end of last year.