The group’s investments on the Romanian market targeted the five financial investment companies (SIF) and Petrom, Romania’s principal oil and gas company and the largest company listed on BVB. The value of Fidelity’s BVB share packages amounts to some €39 million, according to Bloomberg, of which most are SIF shares. Fidelity Investments acquired Petrom shares worth a total of some €1 mln through 16 different funds.
By the end of October 2006, Fidelity Investments bought shares of the five SIFs through 26 funds administered by the group. The company owns 1 percent of SIF 1 Banat-Crisana’s share capital, with the Fidelity Emerging Markets fund having the major participation, at 0.48 percent, valued at €6.3 mln.
This is not the first time principal Wall Street names have become SIF shareholders in the past year. Other companies include the Morgan Stanley investment bank, which bought SIF shares through 4 funds. East Capital Asset is also one of the most important SIF shareholders, controlling almost 1 percent of SIF Banat-Crisana, SIF Moldova, SIF Muntenia, and SIF Oltenia shares.
The Romanian National Securities Commission (CNVM) published a decision in June giving large companies administering several investment funds the possibility of accumulating significant SIF share packages, without being affected by the 1-percent ownership threshold of SIF capital. According to CNVM’s decision, investment administration companies (SAI) act independently of investment funds or investors whose accounts they administer.
