Stere Farmache stepped down as managing director of Bucharest Stock Exchange, taking over in mid January duties as first executive vice-president at Alpha Bank Romania. Farmache, aged 52, remains however chairman of BSE board of directors.
Capital markets calls for liquidity and fiscal incentives
Now speaking from a different standpoint, BSE’s former number one adds a new dose of confidence-boosting medicine to calm stock-market talks, the only field he wishes to comment upon, before officially taking office at one of the most actively-involved banks in Romanian system.
The global financial crisis is severely denting all financial markets, and Bucharest Stock Exchange is surely not an exception. In an interview to Wall-Street, Stere Farmache unfolds BSE’s strategy for 2009, in the midst of financial downturn.
Beyond the regulation measures, the capital markets calls for sustenance of lawmakers, now more than ever, Stere Farmache stressing that promises made by the Executive have rarely took effect in the past years.
“I believe the capital market never pined for projects and pledges from the government, but very few came to pass. One of the Executive’s initiatives was “A strong capital market” program which started to pay off, but now it is blocked by the shaky economic conditions”, said Farmache.
Beyond the streamline of operating means and costs, BSE needs new products, new companies with significant free-float.
“Whether we want it or not, the battlefield is here. I am sure that if the stock exchange was better equipped, with strong companies, who would have drawn a wider institutional investor database, with medium to long term vision, its weakness to crisis would be more limited”.
The government, he added, should understand that the capital market can set into motion alternative financing mechanisms for companies wh
