The shares were transferred in three special deals for 368.1 million lei (EUR82.5 million). According to market sources, Bank of Cyprus was the seller, while one of the buyers is SIF Moldova (SIF2.RO), which reached its stake in the Romanian lender to 8.5%.
The largest Cypriot bank became the second largest holder in Banca Transilvania (behind the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has a 15% stake) in 2009, when it acquired around 10% of the local bank’s stocks.
Beside the deals with Banca Transilvania, the stock market was very quiet Friday, in the last trading day before Easter.
Other special deals with BRD (BRD.RO), Romgaz (SNG.RO), and Fondul Proprietatea (FP.RO) lifted the total traded value to RON387.7 million (EUR87 million). On the regular market, only Proprietatea managed to reach a traded value of more than RON1 million.
Banca Transilvania closed down 0.8%, while Proprietatea inched 0.1% higher. OMV Petrom (SNP.RO) shares rose 0.7%, while Romgaz gained 0.2%, but BRD went down 0.8%.
The bourse’s main indexes closed near Thursday closing levels. BET fell 0.14%, while general index BET-C was up a mere 0.05%.
BET-FI rose 0.61%, fueled by SIF Banat-Crisana (SIF1.RO) and SIF Muntenia (SIF4.RO), which rose 1.6% and 1.3%, respectively.
Bucharest benchmark index BET-BK gained 0.3%, while energy stocks tracker BET-NG was up 0.07%. (EUR1=RON4.4607)