*  Franklin Templeton to begin its job as manager of the Proprietatea fund in March
     *  Ionuţ Popescu, the general manager of the Fund: "Saint Peter himself couldn"t give a certain deadline for the listing"
     The five largest brokerage firms on the BSE will set up a consortium that would handle the listing of the Proprietatea Fund on the BSE, after being invited by the Fund"s management for preliminary discussions.
     The consortium includes Groupe Société Générale, ING Bank, Raiffeisen Capital Investment, BT Securities and KBC Securities. None of the five brokerage firms will receive any compensation for drafting the prospectus for listing the fund, according to the latest discussions in this respect.
     Rareş Nilaş, the head of BT Securities, stated the following for BURSA: "The management of the Proprietatea Fund has invited us to discuss the listing of the fund. We (ed. note: the officials of the five brokerage firms) have decided to set up a consortium to intermediate the listing of the fund. We were OK with doing it for free, we"re doing it for the market. If we start working now, most likely the fund will be ready for listing in Q3 or Q4, but for now, this is purely a discussion on principle. We haven"t signed anything with the Proprietatea Fund yet".
     Officials are saying that the listing of the Proprietatea Fund, which has been delayed for years, is certain to happen this year. On Friday, during the Shareholders" General Assembly of the Fund, the government empowered the officials of the Ministry of Finance, to approve the final version of the contract with American company Franklin Templeton, with the contract for the management of the Fund to be signed in a few weeks.
     The appointment of Franklin Templeton as manager of the Proprietatea Fund is considered a prerequisite for the listing of the Proprietatea Fund, which was awaited for anxiously for more than seven months, after the American company was designated as the manager of the Fund"s assets.
     The shareholders of the Proprietatea Fund are set to hold a new Shareholders" General Meeting on February 10th, when the chairman of the Commission for the Selection of the Fund"s Manager, Enache Jiru, be entitled to sign the contract with Franklin Templeton.
     "When I was appointed as head of the Proprietatea Fund, I stated that I had two objectives: to sign the contract with Franklin Templeton and to list the Proprietatea Fund on the stock exchange. I"m doing my best to speed up the process, but Saint Peter himself couldn"t give a certain deadline for the listing. However, in my opinion, the Fund will almost certainly be listed this year", Ionuț Popescu, the General Manager of the Proprietatea Fund, said for BURSA. He continued: "We have already begun our approach, I had talks with the intermediaries and the Romanian Securities Commission, in order to settle a few legal issues. I don"t want Franklin Templeton to have to start the process for listing the fund from scratch once they begin their operations as manager of the Fund."
     Romania owns 59% of the Proprietatea Fund, through the Ministry of the Economy, with the remaining 41% belonging to various private shareholders.