August 14 (SeeNews) - The manager of Romania's property restitution fund Fondul Proprietatea [BSE:FP] said on Thursday it plans to carry out a secondary listing of the fund on the Specialist Fund Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in September or October.
"[...] we would like to especially point out the fact that the Fund Manager is targeting the end of September/beginning of October for the secondary listing of Fondul Proprietatea on the London Stock Exchange, through depositary interests," the Bucharest branch of Franklin Templeton Investment Management said in a statement.
Fungible trading between London and Bucharest is expected to be achieved via the use of depositary interests in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, the listing can be achieved via the use of global depository receipts (GDRs), but the current local regulations in Romania limit the issuance of GDRs to IPOs and in order for the fund to be able to issue such GDRs, either the regulation should change or the local financial regulator, ASF, should issue a waiver for the fund to be able to issue the GDRs.
Currently, the only outstanding issue is the publication of the required changes to the local regulations which must be approved by ASF, to allow for the listing to go forward as planned, the fund manager added.
ASF said on Wednesday it has set October as deadline to tackle the issues preventing secondary listing of companies through GDRs as part of a wider plan aimed at upgrading the local stock market with the view to receiving an emerging market status.
The fund manager also said it has selected a consortium of investment banks to assist with the secondary listing: Jefferies International Limited as the sole UK financial adviser, together with BRD - Groupe Societe Generale and Swiss Capital as local advisors, and Clifford Chance Badea as the legal advisor for the fund.