Romanian Stocks Decline, Rompetrol Rafinare Jumps on Speculation About Buyout Bid Price

The blue-chip BET index of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, shed 1.44% to 4,751.78 points. The BET-FI index, which tracks the country’s five regional investment funds, the SIFs, edged down 0.62% to 24,078.42 points.

The composite BET-C index ended 1.69% down at 2,737.77. The ROTX index of Romania's 15 most liquid stocks, a joint index of the BVB and the Vienna Stock Exchange, lost 1.94% to 9,770.41.

Rompetrol Rafinare's shares surged 4.96% to 0.0635 lei in the day's largest turnover of 1.3 million lei.

“Speculation here continues about a buyout bid and its price,” one broker told SeeNews.

Dutch-registered oil company Rompetrol Group, controlled by Kazakhstan's KazMunayGaz, is expected to launch a buyout bid for the minority stake in Rompetrol Rafinare ot does not own yet after Romania’s capital market regulator approves the bid’s pricing, probably in January.

According to the broker, the overall market fell on profit taking because investors will be no longer exempted from capital gains tax from next year. Romania suspended payment of capital gains tax for all of 2009 to help the local capital market stay afloat amidst the spreading global financial turmoil. Prior to the suspension, the tax on gains from investments of more than one year was 1.0% and that from investments of less than a year was 16.0%.

BVB's turnover fell to 71.4 million lei ($24.3 million/16.9 million euro) on Monday from 81.7 million lei on Friday, including 36.4 million lei worth of government securities and three deals in shares of SIF 3 Transilvania, blue-chip lender Banca Transilvania and pipeline maker Condmag worth a combined 24 million lei.

A 0.41% stake in Banca Transilvania changed hands for 10.45 million lei, while a 1.3% stake in SIF 3 Transilvania changed hands for a 10.6 million lei. In regular trading the bank’s stock lost 2.24% to 2.18 lei in deals worth 819,000 lei, and the fund’s shares fell 0.73% to 0.68 lei in a turnover of 213,000 lei.

BVB’s total volume of traded shares increased to 57.2 million from 33.1 million in the previous trading session.

SIF 5 Oltenia ended 0.78% lower at 1.28 lei on deals worth a total of 1.2 million lei, Monday’s second highest turnover. SIF 2 Moldova declined 0.87% to 1.14 lei in the session’s third largest turnover of 1.0 million lei.

Blue-chip peer BRD slumped 3.62% to 13.3 lei in 978,000 lei turnover. Austria’s Erste slid 2.12% to 110.6 lei in deals worth 799,000 lei.

Blue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom slipped 3.47% to 0.25 lei in 737,000 lei turnover. Petrochemicals and chemicals group Oltchim sank 8.89% to 0.246 lei in 483,000 lei turnover.

The BET-XT index, which tracks the 25 most liquid companies on the bourse, including the SIFs, dipped 1.51% at 466.81 points. The BET-NG, which includes companies from the energy sector and utilities, ticked down 0.07% to 597.99 points.

Rasdaq-C, the composite index of the over-the-counter market RASDAQ, edged up 0.13% to 2,232.27. Turnover on the RASDAQ rose to 3.5 million lei on Monay from 859,000 lei on Friday as 138,300 shares of building projects developer Reco changed hands for a total of 2.49 million lei in four transactions.

(1 euro = 4.2137 Romanian lei)