Bucharest Stocks Rise 2%, Fondul Proprietatea Reaches New High

09.25.2013 By Bogdan Neagu

The Bucharest stocks gained more than 2% Wednesday, as more funds for purchases became available, while Fondul Proprietatea (FP.RO) reached a new all-time high after announcing the launch of an accelerated share buyback program.

Proprietatea closed at 0.7375 lei (EUR0.16) per share, up 2% on the day, after touching an all-time high at RON0.74 earlier in the day. The fund said Wednesday morning that it plans to launch a public tender offer for 4.35% of its own shares in a move to accelerate a buyback program initiated in April last year.

Other financial stocks benefitted from Proprietatea’s advance, so that both BRD (BRD.RO) and Banca Transilvania (TLV.RO) rose 3.8%, while Banca Carpatica (BCC.RO) closed 2.7% higher.

BET closed at 6,059.49, up 143.05 points, or 2.42%, from Tuesday closing level, while composite index BET-C increased by 60.83 points, or 1.95%, to 3,176.02.

Brokers say the increases were mainly due to new inflows in the market, after the Nuclearelectrica public offering. “It seems that part of the money blocked in the Nuclearelectrica offering started to return to the market, and buyers were more active than in the previous day,” said Marcel Murgoci, operations director at brokerage firm Estinvest.

State-run nuclear power producer Nuclearelectrica has raised RON281.8 million (EUR63 million) in an initial public offering of 10% of its shares ended September 20. The offering was heavily oversubscribed on the small retail investors’ segment, which immobilized part of their funds for two weeks.

OMV Petrom (SNP.RO) closed up 1.7%, but Transelectrica (TEL.RO) was the only one of the ten constituents of BET index to end in red territory, with a 1% decline.

BET-FI, which tracks Fondul Proprietatea and the five regional investment funds (SIFs), closed up 1.25% on the day at 26,841.85,

BET-XT, the extended blue-chip index, was up 2.03%, while energy stocks tracker BET-NG gained 0.38%.

The traded values were 75% higher than Tuesday, reaching RON34.4 million (EUR7.7 million), with 60% coming from trades with Fondul Proprietatea shares. (EUR1=RON4.4711)