Templeton has bought about 10.2 million shares worth 3.8 million lei (EUR850,000) over the past month. It bought RON14 million in shares over the last two months.
Templeton’s funds are reported as Petrom insiders because Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets fund unit is a member of the Supervisory Board of Petrom. Moreover, Fondul Proprietatea, which Templeton manages, owns 20.1% in Petrom.
The shares of the largest local company have gone down from a peak of RON0.42 in March to RON0.37, even though the company has posted spectacular profit increase in the past year. Petrom’s market capitalization stands at EUR4.68 billion, although it posted more than EUR1 billion profit in the past year. Therefore even if the shares are affected by the overall trend of the market, they have the potential to go up in the long run. At this least this is what Templeton feels, which is buying.
Petrom’s shares have risen 27% since the beginning of the year but factoring in the dividends, they generated 40% yield, thus being some of the most profitable on the stock market. (EUR1=RON4.4796)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)