Top foreign investors on BVB

This is the first list of top foreign portfolio investors with Romanian company shares, with the analysis including companies on the stock exchange’s principal market, and the top companies on the electronic Rasdaq market.

The top 40 funds on the Romanian capital market control shares worth some €700 mln, according to calculations by Business Standard. The value of the 40 top investment fund holdings dropped by more than half compared to the end of last year, when they amounted to €1.37 billion, mainly due to a powerful local market decline.

“It is likely that the major drop in portfolios was due to a decline in shares rather than sales by foreign investors, which is also visible in the statistics of net exits, which size was not worrisome,” said Bogdan Campianu, Capital Market Manager of the Raiffeisen Capital&Investment brokerage company.

Brokers who work primarily with foreign investors say that the negative image of Romania’s economy is greatly exaggerated by foreign analysts. “I have had clients who asked if Romanians still shop in supermarkets, and if banks still give loans,” said the Manager of one of the market’s largest brokerage companies.

Bogdan, Ciobotaru, Vice President of Morgan Stanley, one of the worlds’ largest investment banks, recently estimated in an interview for Business Standard that there are 4-5 major investors on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, who have exposure of some $1 billion (€650 mln). “Let’s say that if these decided to reduce their exposure in Romania by 10 percent, for instance, this would mean a withdrawal of $100 million from the market, which would practically speaking impact significantly on the market, as BVB’s daily liquidity is generally below €20 million,” added Ciobotaru.