Economy minister: State to sell at stock exchange part of Petrom shares to participate in OMV enlargement capital

The Romanian state will take to the stock exchange part of the shares owned in Petrom in order to participate at the capital enlargement desired by OMV and to bring funds to budget, Economy minister Adriean Videanu announced on Thursday, May 27, quoted by Romanian news agency Agerpres.

„At the moment, we are in the phase of elaborating the normative act which will stabilise the procedure [selling actions, n.b.]. I will be very transparent. OMV will make a capital enlargement in Petrom, regardless whether the Economy Ministry is going to its option of taking part or not. We are not in the situation where we have 120 million euros to exercise our right to capital enlargement”, Adrian Videanu declared in a press conference on Thursday.

He noted that the Romanian state authorities preferred to sell a part of its Petrom shares than to reduce the percentage owned in this company, following the capital increase that OMV intends to make.

„As a consequence, instead of having the percentage reduced by capital increase (…) we prefer to sell a percentage and, with the money we get, to take part in the capital enlargement and to bring a consistent sum to the state budget. In my opinion, given the situation, this is the fairest procedure at the moment”, Videanu said.

He noted that he wanted this process to be transparent, in the stock exchange, so that the necessary liquidity was created and to stimulate the investors’ interest for other national companies to be listed.

„Notice Poland’s experience in 2009. One of the very important measures that they took to stop the economic decline was to consolidate the stock exchange by privatising minor shares in national societies. The Warsaw stock exchange has presently become one of the most liquid and important in Europe. It was a very correct decision. Why should we not learn from others that have acted in a correct manner?”, Videanu said.