Senate voted to raise the SIF ownership threshold to 5%

The senators’ decision had a strong impact on the Stock Exchange. Immediately after the vote, the BET-FI index, which follows the evolution of SIFs, doubled to nearly six percent from three percent. Half an hour after the decision, the National Securities Commission (CNVM) issued an ordinance to suspend the five SIFs from trading for a couple of hours, after the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) left the shares free on the market.

The group of senators that initiated the project will continue to try and redefine the way in which concerted voting is established, so that the decision is made by CNVM and not the SIFs.

“After we see the market’s reaction to five percent, we will file a new legislative initiative which would lead to what we initially proposed, namely the complete elimination of the threshold. Anyway, CNVM also wants the complete elimination of this threshold,” Ovidiu Marian, Senator and member of the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) and the initiator of the project, told Business Standard.

SIF shares ended the day on the Stock Exchange with an average increase of 5.2 percent. SIF Oltenia shares were the most traded, with transactions totalling over RON 10.4 million (€2.42 mln), far ahead of the other SIFs.

Brokers say that the trend among institutional investors at the moment is one of caution in regard to Romania, and this is why the Senate’s vote will not matter much, especially since the final decision will be made by the Chamber of Deputies.