Winding-up IFs' stocks to be further traded on MSE

3 Investment Funds (IFs) undergoing dissolution – Glorinvest, Migdalinvest and Carpineniprivatinvest – started on August 1 to distribute to their shareholders the proceeds from sales of assets. The distribution of the funds is performed through the commercial bank Investprivatbank. A shareholder will get 0.49 lei for each share in Glorinvest ;0.44 lei in Migdalinvest; and 0.75 lei in Carpineniprivatinvest. Starting this autumn, these three IFs will be joined by Incom-invest, a share in which will be exchanged for 1.36 lei. Elena Pui, member of the Financial Market Regulator's Board, told Info-Prim Neo that only four out of 25 IFs undergoing liquidation managed to sell all the shares by the prescribed limit of time – 1 July 2008. The rest failed to meet the deadline. So, out of 623 packages of stocks formerly owned by IFs undergoing compulsory liquidation and 372 packages owned by IFs undergoing voluntary dissolution, roughly 200 have been left unsold. According to the law, in addition to the proceeds from the auctions that met the deadline, the shareholders of these funds are due to receive the remnant shares. “This could cause the number of shareholders to rise excessively in some companies. It might also happen that one piece of stock goes to two or three shareholders, or it is issued by a company based in another part of the country than the residence of the shareholder. It's obvious that people would prefer money instead of stock certificates, whose fair market value could be questionable. Some of the issuers are now insolvent. That is why we suggest the remaining 200 packages should be auctioned on the Moldova Stock Exchange and sold to the highest bidder, with the proceeds to be later distributed among the shareholders. This method of selling shares proved efficient in June, when the winding-up IFs sold the largest number of packages”, said Elena Pui. The proposal to auction the lots left over after the deadline is to be submitted to the Government for consideration. The Financial Market Regulator will also recommend the Government to consider easing the procedure for issuing stock certificates for IF shareholders.