Creating a Sovereign Investment Fund could generate more value for Romania, the ministers will not spend much time anymore to deal with the state-controlled companies and their transparency will increase, said Greg Konieczny, portfolio manager at Fondul Proprietatea.

“We believe the Sovereign Fund is an interesting, ambitious plan, and we even believe that if executed correctly could generate a lot of value to Romania and the Romanian economy, but also for the state-controlled companies and for Fondul Proprietatea as a shareholder. There are two key issues. The first is that it should lead to a separation between the position of owner and the achievement of policies. This change would free up a lot of time of the line-ministers, which in the present, willing or not, need to spend a lot of time dealing with the state-controlled companies. Secondly this should lead to greater transparency on what happens with state assets because we expect this Fund to adopt about the same reporting requirements as Fondul Proprietatea or any other closed investment fund in Romania, so to follow the rules of ASF, which would lead to a lot of responsibility”, said Konieczny, according to Agerpres.

According to Konieczny, at present the government or the majority coalition already control these companies, but they can do now many things without the obligation of making them public.

“Above all, a proper corporate structure of the Fund would be an added advantage for all of us. An independent Board of Directors, a professional management, too, all these things should help on the one hand to monitor companies and secondly to achieve the appointments of independent Councils and of professional managers in the companies. What we offered the Government (at Tuesday’s meeting n.r.) was to share our expertise and experience from Fondul Proprietatea and based on other funds that we manage in other countries, to help that this initiative be successful”, further showed the official of the Fund.