European Commissioner Cretu mentioned during a press conference that Romania has significant delays on a number of areas for European funds. “Romania has so far met 14 out of 22 requirements set by the European Commission, but still has areas with significant delays” said Cretu. She adds that there are 280 investment projects for the next years regarding healthcare facilities nd 65 emergency care rooms at county hospitals and three regional hospitals. This follows the recent announcement by the European Commission that payments for Sectoral Operational Programme for Human Resources Development POSDRU will be interrupted again because of irregularities in the way of project selection, discovered by European officials in a mission audit conducted last year between October 21 to November 10. POSDRU payments were discontinued or suspended by the EC several times in recent years, amid suspicions of fraud. ...more »

MedLife the private healthcare market leader in Romania, signed a syndicated loan of EUR 56 million, with the Romanian Commercial Bank, ING Bank, Raiffeisen Bank and BRD, of which 20 million euros will be earmarked for acquisitions. The majority stake in the company is owned by Marcu family other shareholders being the investment fund Value4Capital and IFC. According to company representatives, the 20 million will be supplemented with own funds of € 5 million and will be used exclusively for acquisitions to extend the MedLife operations nationwide. ...more »

Polish Innova Capital Investments Fund has sold the entire shares package of Provus Group (altogether with Provus Service Provider, Romcard and Supercard Solutions & Services), the biggest payment processing center in Romania and one of the largest in Europe to German services supplier Wirecard, for 32 million EUR. With a total of 114 employees, Provus is Romania’s leading payment processing and technological service provider. The payment provider supports companies in outsourcing acquiring and card processing, e-commerce payment transactions and point-of-sale (POS) operations. Its customer base includes major Romanian banks in addition to significant telecommunications and retail players. In addition, Provus has worked with the Romanian government in the digitisation of health and payment cards. Provus was set up in 2001 and ever since it has been present on the Romanian market with card processing transactions, card personalization, as well as retail services. The group has 114 employees and over time, it has served clients like Sensiblu, MOL Romania, Cora Profi, Metro Cash&Carry Romania, but also local branches of OTP, Unicredit, and Societe Generale....more »

2015 has been the best year for the hotels in Bucharest compared to any of the past five, having had a growth of 8,6%, and reaching 68%. The growing number of tourists not only reflects in the occupancy rates, but also in the numbers of the tourism agencies that organize events and incoming. Comparing the working days with the weekends, analysts from STR Global noticed a larger market for business and corporate clients so they concluded that leisure tourism should grow faster to become at least equal to business tourism. ...more »

Veranda shopping center, located in the Obor area in Bucharest, attracted funding of EUR 25.5 million from Raiffeisen Bank SA and Raiffeisen Bank International AG, that will be used fort the project development. In this transaction, Veranda Mall was assisted by law firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and PeliFilip, while financing banks have been advised by the lawyers of CMS Cameron McKenna. The credit agreement for Veranda shopping center was completed in February 2016 in order to partly finance the total cost for project development. Under the agreement, it provides the opportunity to increase funding to 28.5 million euros, while the total investment in the project is estimated to 60 million. ...more »

After three years of delays, energy trader Alpiq Romindustries and aluminum producer Alro SA lose law suits in favor of Hidroelectrica. Alro and Alpiq were requesting damages worth of 146 million EUR for not being registered in the preliminary table of claims after Hidroelectrica entered insolvency.  From October 2011 to December 2012, Hidroelectrica faced extreme dryness and therefore, the low debits of the Danube could not provide the foreseen amount of energy to its creditors. At first, it tried to compensate by buying thermic energy and selling it for an even lower price. But, when the financial resources were exhausted, the company invoked force majeure, which allowed them to diminish the quantity of energy provided to its commercial partners. The Court entitled Hidroelectrica to the reimbursement of the trial expenses, approx. 28.600 EUR. Alro was represented by Tuca Zbarcea & Asociatii, and Alpiq by law firmSchoenherr. ...more »

In the past five years, UniCredit has owned 18 percent of the leasing market in Romania by financing and other similar services through UniCredit Leasing, Corporation IFN, UniCredit Leasing Fleet Management and Unicredit Insurance Broker. The company is followed in the first tier by Impuls Leasing and Porsche Leasing. According the the Association of Leasing Companies ALB, the financial leasing market is estimated to around 770 million Euro overall in 2015, recording an increase of 16 percent compared to the previous year....more »

Alro, the biggest aluminum producer in Central and Eastern Europe finalized a 137 million dollar revolving loan approval with a bank syndicate consisting of Raiffeisen Bank International, Raiffeisen Bank România, UniCredit Bank, OTP Bank, Eximbank, Garanti Bank, Intesa Bank and Banca Transilvania. The measure was approved by the Alro Slatina shareholders in late 2015 in order to refinance a previous 120 million dollar loan, released by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in 2010. Alro ensures the loan with their immovables, mortgages for security of personal property, for their civil rights for damages caused by insurance policies, personal stocks and shares of Alum and Conef, also owned by Alro....more »

Romania's dependency on energy imports is one of the lowest in the European Union reveals the Eurostat data released on energy consumption. The average energy dependency in the EU is around 53.4 percent, which means that the EU had to import more than half of the energy it consumed. The EU member states least dependent on energy imports were Estonia (8.9 percent), Denmark (12.8 percent) and Romania (17percent). The states that have the highest share of energy imports in 2014 are Malta with 97.7percent, Luxembourg (96.6percent) and Cyprus (93.4percent)....more »

Banca Transilvania has purchased a portfolio consisting of performant loans, granted by the Bank of Cyprus in Romania to some retail customers. The transaction will be finalized at the end of February this year and, as a result, it will increase the retail customers database of Banca Transilvania. Thus, the Bank continues its’ acquisitions on the local market, subsequently to the taking over and integration of Volksbank Romania in 2015....more »