Aurel Bernat, BT: For a listed company, retail brings reaction, institutional investors require transparency

Aurel Bernat, Executive Director Financial Institutions and Investor Relations at Banca Transilvania, participated at the ZF Capital Markets 2025 conference, where he emphasized the importance of a diversified shareholder base and highlighted BT's essential role in supporting and developing the Romanian economy.

Balancing investor typologies: 

• It is best for a company to have a range of investors. And here, if we look, first of all, anchors: if you're big enough or attractive enough, anchors of the suprastate investor type are welcome.
   
• Institutional investors: it's good to have stability, and it's good to have someone constantly asking the question: what's next? At the same time, you need individual investors, individuals, because they create not only liquidity, but also emulation of the brand, of the action.
  
  
• Retail is very reactive, and the institutions teach you to be transparent.
  
  

About the presence of international capital:

• The locals know who they are and what their geography looks like. For internationals, the entire Romanian market still has some way to go. In order to be on the map, more and more companies need to expose themselves and show that they exist. And this, in the end, translates into economic diplomacy, which we need to do with everyone.
  
  

About BT's role in financing the Romanian economy:

• Things at Banca Transilvania have been going very well so far, and the future looks equally good from now on, especially if we look at where there are areas where we can grow as a banking business.
  
  
• If we look at all the figures that exist and are circulated in the market, from financial intermediation to the leverage that the banking sector has in terms of the resources attracted versus the stock of credit in the market, there is still a long way to go.
  
  
• BT's network of subsidiaries: these are the subsidiaries that are extremely strong in segments such as leasing, pensions, investment funds, brokerage and the like - microfinance, for example - where, thanks to the large number of customers we have at group and parent bank level, we have the possibility to expand the business.
  
  
• I think our story overlaps with the story of Romania in a wider circle and Romania in general. We've had growth, growth is there, the potential for growth is there now. It just needs work, probably more and more work as wealth grows, but we are positive.