Every four years, SIFs (financial investment companies) elect their Boards of Directors, which manage assets worth hundreds of million euros and a significant part of the country's economy. SIFs are the descendants of former private property funds, set up as part of the mass privatisation programme, having taken over around 6% of the share capital of Romania's state-owned companies at the moment they were created.
For major shareholders, this is a decisive moment, as they can learn whether they become part of management and have a say in handling these companies or stay out for another four years, watching how others make decisions for their money.
There is no other chance for them, as changing the Board of Directors during the mandate is almost impossible. For this, the status requires a quorum similar with that for the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, of at least 50% of shareholders, compared with elections at the end of the term, carried out as part of the General Meeting of Shareholders, with a smaller quorum. This year, maybe unlike at any other moment in SIFs' history, a group of foreign and domestic shareholders are trying through a joint strategy to take over the management of a SIF.
At the end of this week, on 24 April, in Arad, a group of foreign investment funds, represented by Capital Partners investment bank, and a group of Romanian investors, grouped around Banca Transilvania, are fighting to take over the management of SIF Banat-Crisana (SIF1). The context is a favourable one, after SIF stock has plummeted in the past two years, pushing a rising number of investors to voice their discontent with the current SIF management teams, which in some cases have not been changed for 14 years.
Investors want a bigger say in making decisions, in the context where they have boosted their stakes in SIF capital in recent years and now for the first time have the possibility of gaining a management position. Some have been preparing for this moment for a long time and have been trying to gain the support of other shareholders. Arguments brought by shareholders asking for changes include the lack of transparency and the weak communication with shareholders, as well as SIF management teams' inertia in managing portfolios.
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