* The vice-president of the ASF does not understand why the SIFs aren't allowed to invest in other SIFs: "Whose interest is it to place this Chernobyl-like concrete bell around the SIFs, instead of letting the market move how it wants?"
The decision of the management of SIF1 Banat Crişana to reduce its share capital has no legal power, considers Mircea Ursache, the vice-president of the stock market division of the ASF, who claims, however, that the SIFs should align with the Law of Companies, which allows the meeting of the General Shareholder Meetings with lower quorums than the ones stipulated in the articles of incorporation.
According to the vice-president of the Financial Oversight Authority, in 2006, the law no. 31/1990 concerning companies has been amended to account for the European directives, meaning that all the companies have the right to hold the General Extraordinary Shareholder Meeting with a quorum of 25% on the first summons, and 20% on the second, but four of the five SIFs can not do that, simply because they have different minimum requirements stipulated in their articles of incorporation.
Mircea Ursache told us: "My first concern, now that Government Ordinance 32 (ed. note: concerning the collective entities that invest in securities) will go up for debate with the parliamentary commissions, both in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, is to send to the Parliament the request to discuss the elimination of this barrier which is unnatural, counterproductive, that would allow the SIFs to hold the Extraordinary General Shareholder Meetings just like all the other companies in Romania".
In his opinion, at SIF Banat Crişana, it has come to the situation where the Board of Directors would decide the reduction of the share capital, precisely as a result of the inability of "the old structure that regulated the stock market" to