BT group sells 13.6m euros' worth of SIF1 shares to avoid risk of penalties from CNVM

Banca Transilvania (TLV) and another five firms in the group have put up for sale a 4.34% stake in financial investment company SIF Banat Crişana at a price of 2.45 RON/share, around 2.3 times higher than the last market price, of 1.05 RON/share. The price asked by the BT group for the stake is 58.4 million RON (13.6 million euros), while on the Stock Exchange the stake is currently put at around 25 million RON (5.8 million euros).

"Now we are in the stage where we challenged the CNVM (National Securities Commission) ordinance but have not received an answer. At the same time, the 90-day deadline for complying with the ordinance has expired, that is why we took this step. The only price we consider to be the correct one is net asset/share. We made the decision to sell for the entities under our management, there is no connection between us and the other entities the CNVM refers to," specified Radu Hanga, general manager of BT Asset Management. Market watchdog CNVM issued an ordinance in August whereby it required several firms presumed to be part of the BT group to cut their stakes in SIF Banat-Crişana to 1%, from 17.28%.