The National Securities Commission (CNVM) on Thursday issued instructions to the heads of the financial investment companies (SIF) to eliminate the highly contested stipulation of their statutes that prohibits any shareholder to own more than 0.1% in each of the SIFs.
Though the text of the instructions referring to stake caps in the SIFs' statutes leaves enough room for interpretations, CNVM representatives say that the meaning of the new regulations is that SIFs have to remove any cap on the percentage of the shares held from their statutes.
In parallel, the Parliament is discussing the same issue referring to the stake caps in SIFs, with options including, beside its elimination, maintaining the current level of 0.1%, or raising it to 1 or 5%.
SIF shares on Thursday posted solid growth, adding 10 percentage points after the 5% drop during the previous day caused by discussions about the tax on gains derived on the capital market.
SIFs were suspended from trading several minutes ahead of the publication of CNVM instructions, and the suspension was maintained on Friday, as well.
Even though they were suspended in the middle of the day, SIF shares were the most traded on market. SIF Oltenia logged deals worth 2.9 million euros and climbed 8.2% to 14,500 ROL/share.
SIF Moldova rose 6.89%, to 12,600 ROL/share. SIF Banat-Crisana increased by 9% to 13,300 ROL/share. The highest price surges were posted by SIF Transilvania and SIF Muntenia, each of which adding 11%.
In line with the instructions issued by CNVM on Thursday, SIFs have to either remove of modify the stipulations in their statutes referring to the limitation of stakes or voting rights, which are contrary to the principle that SIFs shares give their owners equal rights and obligations.
Is the limitation of the interest in a specific SIF to 0.1% contrary to the principle according to which shares confer equal rights to owners? "The point of view of the Commission is that it is, and any limitation of stakes in the statutes of SIFs must be removed," Paul Miclaus, a CNVM member, told Ziarul Financiar.
SIF representatives say, though, that the instruction leaves room for a different interpretation. "The capital market law makes no reference to the modification of the holding threshold, and the CNVM instruction is just an administrative document linked to the implementation of the law and does not create any norm. We have no legal basis to be able to modify the holding ceiling and all we can do is to call an Extraordinary General Meeting and propose the modification of the threshold," says Mihai Fercala, chairman of SIF Transilvania. vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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