Franklin Templeton (FT) will list the Romanian investment fund Fondul Proprietatea in London this December and hopes to get approval from shareholders for another share buyback, the fund’s manager Greg Konieczny said in a Reuters interview.

Bucharest set up the fund in 2005 to compensate Romanians whose properties were seized under communism. It holds minority stakes in a slew of state-owned firms — some of which are unlisted — and is managed by Franklin Templeton.

Preparations to list the vehicle on London’s Specialist Fund Market have been underway for some time and Templeton’s Konieczny said in April he hoped for a listing in September or October. However, the final sign-off from Romania’s regulator ASF is still outstanding.

On Friday, Fondul had a market capitalisation of 11.6 billion lei ($3.29 billion US dollar) on the Bucharest stock exchange.

“Everything depends on the local ASF when they approve this. I hope they will be able to do it sometime mid-November,” Konieczny told Reuters in an interview.

“We think that the most probable time would be at the beginning of December,” he said, adding Fondul would need fresh permission from shareholders if the launch was delayed to 2015.

Templeton has pushed successive governments in the European Union’s second-poorest state to reform outdated and inefficient state-owned businesses. Konieczny was optimistic that state-owned Hidroelectrica, in which Fondul holds 20 percent, would exit insolvency in 2015 and come to the market.

“(There are) good chances for the IPO to happen before the end of 2015,” he said, adding the power company could raise between 400 million and 500 million euros.

Konieczny also planned to propose a fifth share buyback programme for 2 percent of outstanding shares at a meeting in late November. Fondul is already in the process of launching a tender to buy back 6 percent of its stock.

The discount between Fondul’s net asset value and its stock price has fallen to around 25 percent, from 55.7 percent in 2011, following a number of share buyback programmes. Fondul’s shareholders would like to see the discount below 15 percent.

Asked what level he was aiming for, Konieczny declined to comment, but pointed out that the largest discount among the top 15 funds listed in London stood at around 13 percent.

“It doesn’t mean that’s our target,” he said. “(But) we do say that this current discount is excessive.”