The number of Romanians investing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange both directly and indirectly is expected to increase by around 3 million after the four-month mandatory pension campaign ends.
From Monday, September 17, more than 3 million salaried employees will be invited to join a private pension fund. Half of them, those under 35 years of age, will be required to choose a fund within the next four months (until January 17, 2008) and the other half, aged 35 to 45, can choose a fund at any time until they turn 45, but are not obligated to do so.
The number of Romanians actively and directly investing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange stands at around 10,000-15,000. Those who invest money on the Stock Exchange indirectly are investors in mutual funds (some 80,000 people) and those who have an insurance policy with a savings and investment component (unit linked), account for around 300,000.
On the other hand, the emergence of private pension funds will make around 3 million people indirect investors on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, given that all funds invest a portion of their assets in listed shares and management companies also invest a portion of contributed capital on Bucharest's regulated market.
On average, around 20-25% of the mandatory private pension funds' capital will be invested in listed shares. The management companies say that most of the money invested in listed shares in the first 1 or 2 years will be invested on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, until significant volumes of capital accumulate so that they could look at other capital markets.
The three million client base for mandatory pension funds will indirectly invest up to one quarter of their old age savings on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. According to the estimates of the management companies, mandatory private pension funds will reach their first billion euros in managed assets by 2010, which means that 200-250 million euros of this money could remain on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
The assets will continue to increase exponentially, and 10 years after the start of the system, will account for 9 to 12 billion euros, as various estimates indicate.
Fourteen management companies will launch campaigns on September 17 (ING, Aviva, Allianz-Tiriac, Omniasig, Interamerican, Prima Pensie, AIG, BT Aegon, Generali, BRD, OTP, BCR, Bancpost and KD), as well as 13 funds (KD had not received the licence for its fund until yesterday).
The market's regulatory and supervisory authority will hold its last meeting before the mandatory pension sales today, which could add new players to the list.
More than 105,000 sales agents have been authorised and will handle the distribution of products. The number of agents is expected to increase at a constant rate over the coming days.
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