The three investment funds managed by the US branch of Swiss bank Julius Baer have reached a close to 140 million-dollar exposure on the shares listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
The most capitalised of the three funds, market data show, is the biggest portfolio investor in Romania.
The funds held shares worth approximately 138 million dollars at the end of June, according to the quarterly report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the capital market supervisory authority in the United States. Most of the stocks listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange have been on the rise since July, meaning the value of the shares held by the funds is now even higher.
The value of the stock portfolio belonging to the fund is equal to one month of trading on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, meaning a decision to buy or sell by the managers of the New York fund can have a powerful impact on stock quotes in Bucharest.
In addition, the Romanian shares only represent 1% of the funds'' assets, which amounted to 14.3bn dollars at the end of July, according to the quarterly report. The funds trade on many of the capital markets of the world - from Indonesia and South Africa to the US and German capital markets.
The largest fund managed by the Americans, Julius Baer International Equity Fund, held 96 million dollars'' worth of Petrom shares at the end of July, accounting for 1.07% of the company''s capital, in addition to 29.1 million dollars of BRD shares, 1.5% of the bank. Petrom has dropped by approximately 6% since then, while BRD has risen by some 40%. At the end of July, the fund also had 4.5 million dollars in Impact shares as well as interests in the drug makers Sicomed and Biofarm (each stake worth over 2 million dollars) and smaller stakes in Compa Sibiu, Rolast Pitesti, Braila Shipyard and Socep Constanta.
The fund continued to buy Romanian stocks between May and July, according to its report submitted to the SEC. It bought a further 8 million shares in Petrom worth one million dollars, while its interests in Impact and Biofarm rose by 8 and 4 million shares respectively, probably because of the capital increases at the two companies. On the other hand, in April the fund sold the 0.1% stakes it held in each of the SIFs.
The profit made by the fund on the Romanian market in the three months amounted to approximately 30 million dollars.
Data on the market show that the fund suspended sales of new units, with investors only offered the possibility of a repurchase. However, the company established a similar fund, Julius Baer International Equity II Fund, which is already buying on the same markets as the first fund. The second fund bought 650,000 dollars'' worth of Petrom shares in the last quarter, out of a 104 million-dollar asset.
Julius Baer''s third fund on the Bucharest Stock Exchange is Julius Baer Global Equity Fund, which also has an exposure on the Romanian market of 1%, though out of a 50 million-dollar asset. The fund owns stakes in Petrom, BRD, Impact and the five SIFs, together worth 516,000 dollars.
According to information on the market, the three funds began trading on the Bucharest Stock Exchange through ING Securities, ING Bank''s brokerage firm, which has handled the most transactions on the market since the beginning of the year, achieving a traded volume of nearly 250 million euros. vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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