The severe decline of the local capital market in the past few months led to a withdrawal of foreign investors from BVB. Mutual funds administrated by investment bank Morgan Stanley sold their stocks in the five financial investment companies (SIF) in the last quarter of 2007. Five funds administrated by Morgan Stanley Asset Management sold SIF shares worth a total €16.2 million.

As for East Capital, its most significant investments were in Romania's largest company, Petrom, where its funds owned 177.7 million shares. Their value amounted to €18.2 mln, at yesterday's quotation. The participation in Petrom made 30 percent of the company's investments on BVB. Other investments are stocks of Impact Developer&Contractor and the five SIFs, according to data provided by the fund administrator in December.

Since mid-July 2007, the main index of the local capital market, BET, declined more than 32 percent, due to corrections on the international capital markets.