The representatives of majority and minority shareholders on Monday stated their positions regarding the public purchase offers for delisting, during an extraordinary meeting of the National Securities Commission (CNVM). During debates, the two sides exchanged rather acid words, aiming to convince the CNVM of the "investments poured so far in the companies" (the major shareholders) or of the "rights of millions of shareholders deprived of protection" (the minority shareholders).
At the request of the CNVM head Gabriela Anghelache, the meeting focused on the pivotal problems related to the compulsory takeover offers: the legislative void created by the latest regulations on the deadline for offer launching and the offers' price.
The legislative void should have been the most disputed issue. Last week, several investors holding more than 90% in certain companies revealed plans to launch offers and even put out public purchase offers, seizing the opportunity provided by the unclear stipulations of the latest government ordinance on the capital market. The minority shareholders issued vigorous protests, claiming the offers were in fact bending the law.
During the CNVM meeting, Robert Luke, manager of the Romanian Post Privatisation Fund and a member of the Council of Foreign Investors (CIS), focused on the price issue and said the CIS had not formulated an opinion regarding the attempts of some majority investors to delist their companies by December 1, 2002.
Cristian Siminel Andrei, head of the Broadhurst investment fund and representative of the minority shareholders, made the most of CIS' lack of an official stance and took matters further.
"Since CIS has no official stance on the offers or offer announcements released lately, this is in fact a clue, showing it actually disagrees with them," Siminel said.
"We have not taken a stance yet, because we were not asked to. We will formulate a position by December 1," Luke retorted.
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