Aurel Bernat, Executive Director for Financial Markets and Investor Relations at Banca Transilvania, took part in the Târgu Mureș edition of the conference BT Invest – How Romanian capital can grow together, organized by Banca Transilvania together with Ziarul Financiar.

At the event, Aurel Bernat spoke about Romania’s potential to attract investment, investor interest in the local market and the banking sector’s capacity to support economic development.

On Romania’s potential:

• People often ask what keeps us up at night. I’ll tell you what gets us up in the morning: we have work to do and a country to build. And if we take a positive view of this, I believe we will be the ones to benefit.
  
  
• We have access to the Black Sea, we have gas and a highly diversified GDP. We have energy, where we are largely self-sufficient today, and will be tomorrow once Neptun Deep comes on stream. All this needs to be put on the table as we go out and seek investors.
  
  
• Investors are starting to look at Romania the way they looked at Poland 10-15 years ago.
  
  
• We will see more foreign investment, greater interest and rising wages for the local workforce, as long as we talk our country up. Capital is highly mobile and generally goes where there’s a welcoming hand that tells the story.
  
  
• The banking sector in Romania has never had as much liquidity and capital as it does today.
  
  

The capital market as a source of funding for companies:

• The discussion starts the moment a company is founded. The ambition should include the capital market, and the capital market does not exclude investment funds. In fact, capital markets are anything other than your own pocket. Many companies in Romania today are founded or operate using the owners’ own money — those of the existing shareholders or the founders.
  
  
• Initial equity is crucial, but other people’s money is cheaper than your own, so it should be used. Make use of investment funds and the stock exchange, together with all the transparency requirements that come with them.
  
  

The full event can be watched here.