The elimination of the special reporting requirements of the FICs to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) has sparked the concern of some of the BSE investors, who are concerned that the five financial investment companies will be less transparent if no longer required to report transactions greater than 500,000 dollars, the weekly NAV or the monthly portfolio structure.

The managers of the FICs, however, claim that the elimination of these requirements will allow them to compete on a level playing field with their competitors, as they would no longer be required to reveal their investment strategies.

"There"s no reason for anyone to worry over the elimination of these requirements, especially since they are not provided in any law or in any Instruction of the CNVM", said Mihai Fercală, the chairman of SIF "Transilvania", who added: "Market rules should apply to all players equally. Why should my market competitors know my investment strategy? The FICs want to be among the most transparent players, but they do not wish to provide information to their competitors. When I see every issuer report any deals worth more than 500,000 dollars, then we will report ours".

The special reporting requirements for the five financial investment companies were set up in 1999, by the Stock Market Listing Commission, with the BSE requiring the FICs to meet additional transparency requirements compared to the ones set through the legal regime at the time.

At the end of 2010 and in early January 2011, SIF "Moldova", SIF "Transilvania" and SIF "Oltenia" requested that the special reporting requirements of the FICs be reviewed again, claiming that they had a negative impact on the efficiency of their strategies and investment policies.

Tudor Ciurezu, the managing director of SIF "Oltenia", said that there have been cases where some investors speculated the plan