A recent attempt of the state to sell 9.84% of shares in major Romanian oil company Petrom (majority owned by OMV) has failed as investors who responded to the offer managed to underwrite less than the 80% of the shares, which was the minimum required. Let's presume the Government led by Emil Boc really wanted to sell the Petrom stake (If they only claimed so to please the IMF then people responsible should be judged for high treason). The failure of the Petrom share sale filtered through a government crowded with impotent officials: from the politically semi-illiterate PM Emil Boc to Florin Vladan, an obscure official who negotiated on Romania's behalf despite not even Google has ever heard of him. One should not forget catastrophic Economy minister Ion Ariton, one of the weakest ministers of the past two decades. Let's consider the causes of the failure one by one.

1. The selection of an intermediary for the sale of the OMV Petrom stake held by the Romanian Economy Ministry

Six consortia joined the bidding. Each was lead by a big name: Goldman Sachs, Nomura, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley or UBS, with huge experience in such deals and with obvious connections in relevant markets, plus a consortium led by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank controlled by billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the head of a new party formed under the wing of Vladimir Putin.

The specifications of the bidding provided generous points to the financial offer. It was Achille's heel as outsider Renaissance Capital (plus "lieutenants" EFG Eurobank Securities - BT Securities - Romcapital) offered too small a price, undermining all other offers. Winning the bid raised a huge question mark for the entire market and sent shivers among those familiar with the energy market: a Russian investment bank was on the receiving end of all the data of Romania's strongest co