BCR sold corporate loans granted in the pre-Erste period

This is the first loan package registered by BCR in the Electronic Archive of Mobile Real Guarantees (AEGRM) for which the currency is unspecified. The bank sold receivables whose value was listed at the end of August 2009 as being worth over 734 million to Suport Colect, a company part of the BCR group. When contacted by Business Standard, bank officials declined to indicate the currency in which these loans was registered and sold.

“It is preferable that the BCR portfolio improve. In this period, the bank must focus on new investments,” the President of the SIF Transilvania financial investment company, Mihai Fercală, told Business Standard.

The five financial investment companies (SIF) control a 30.12 percent package of BCR’s capital.

SIF representatives will meet tomorrow with the Chairman of the Erste Bank’s Board, Andreas Treichl, and Manfred Wimmer, Erste’s Chief Financial Officer and former Chief Executive Officer of BCR, to discuss the recent decision by the Austrian group to transfer its exposure on the Romanian bank to a limited company, established in Vienna. The President of the company that manages SIF Muntenia, Petre Pavel Szel, said that it is possible that this loan package will be part of a more ample restructuring program. “We will know more tomorrow, at the meeting with Erste officials, where we will also talk about modifying Erste Bank’s ownership at BCR,” said Szel.

The loans sold by the bank were granted to some enterprises which are now bankrupt or in legal liquidation. Some have already been deregistered from the Trade Register.

Attorney Dumitru Rădescu said that, in the case of the bankrupt enterprises, BCR declared itself as creditor, and this is why the bank still hopes to recover part of the debts. “Practically speaking, by selling these receivables, the bank washes its hands of the commercial law suits that the assignee must bear from now on. The debts of these enterprises could have been annulled in three years from the due date only if the insolvency procedure had not been initiated,” said Rădescu.

On the other hand, Gheorghe Piperea, Vice President of the National Union of Insolvency Practitioners in Romania, said that “there is nothing BCR can do.” “In the case of the deregistered enterprises, the bank could request the money from administrators or shareholders, but this is a very complicated procedure. If they have not resorted to any act of debt enforcement in three years since the loan reached maturity, then this is annulled,” said Piperea.