Romania's SIF Oltenia to pass up BCR's capital hike

The fund said it will not participate in the capital increase in the way it was approved by BCR on December 3-4, SIF Oltenia said in a report filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

BCR said in November it planned to sell 770,769,000 new shares with a nominal value of 0.10 lei at a price of 0.65 lei per share to existing shareholders. EGB Ceps Holding GmbH, owned by Erste Group Bank AG, holds a 93.3% stake in BCR. The remainder is in the hands of several individuals and companies.

"We view this piece of news as positive for SIF5 [SIF Oltenia] shares as there were speculations that SIF5 might subscribe," Raiffeisen Capital and Investment Research said in a note to investors on Tuesday, adding that despite the agreement between the fund and majority holder Erste Group in the autumn of 2011, SIF Oltenia had neither swapped, nor sold its shares.

In August 2011 Erste group offered to buy a combined 30.1% stake in its Romanian unit BCR from five Romanian regional investment funds, as a result it acquired in 2011 the stakes owned by four of them but SIF Oltenia.

"Although SIF5 equity interest will be diluted SIF5 could still benefit from the same terms as the other SIFs for the most part of its existing stake," .

(1 euro = 4.5318 Romanian lei)