Basescu Is Acquiring a Luxurious Neighborhood

The World Trade Center Company representatives, the company that owns the luxurious houses development in the North Street, are one-step away from finalizing the selling negotiations of the entire French Neighborhood in Bucharest to the Municipality.

They reached an understanding with the General City Hall that says that for the French Club the Municipality should pay approximately 3 million U.S. dollars. In the same time, they negotiate over a sum between 8.7 and 10 million U.S. dollars for the selling of the 140 houses development containing individual mansions and residential apartments. The change of the owner has been made at Prime Minister’s advice, after the last meeting between him, Adrian Nastase, and the general Mayor of the Capital, Traian Basescu. They decided to transfer the French Village in the General City Hall heritage, without any auction.

EVALUATIONS. The General Council of Bucharest has already approved the entire estate operation. The only thing that is left to do is setting the precise price of the luxurious mansions, taking into account the two evaluations made. One of them belonged to the Authority for the Valuation of the State’s Assets (AVSA) with the help of the Darian Rom Suisse Ltd company and estimates a 10 million U.S. dollars value for the neighborhood, but without the club. The second evaluation has been made by the Capital’s City Hall and reaches approximately 8.7 million U.S. dollars. It is very probable that the City Hall will pay a sum around 9 million U.S. dollars for the mansions in this green island.

DEBT. The former Authority for the Valuation of the Banking Assets (AVBA) had a book debt of approximately 80 million U.S. dollars (63.4 million USD taken over from the Ministry of the Public Finances and more than 15 million USD from Bancorex and the Agricultural Bank) over World Trade Center corporate share company. The take over of these debts from the ceasing banks, Bancorex and the Agricultural Bank respectively, happened in 1999 based on several banking assets, by the initiation of some measures for diminishing the public debt. After taking over the book of debt, AVBA implemented its own methods concerning the valuation and the transformation respectively of World Trade Center Bucharest (WTCB) from an Ltd to a share company. The taking over of the company’s management followed this, by naming Mircea Ursache, the vice president of AVBA at that time, as the president of the Administration Council.

In 2002, WTCB became a share company, with the agreement of the French creditor banks. Led by the AVBA vice president, the Administration Council had the public purpose of diminishing the costs in order to return integrally the costs. All this time the environment for the normal functioning of the company at the existent classifying standards has been kept. The French neighborhood newly sold to the City Hall has been an estate investment of WTCB Share Company.

MONEY FOR THE YOUTH

"The City Hall collects an annual 465 franc rent per square meter for the domain in the French Village. Until now, this year, we have obtained 1.3 million euros from the Village and approximately 250,000 euros from the French Club", explained Traian Basescu, the general mayor of Bucharest. He said that the Municipality would use the money obtained from the rents collected from the French Village in order to help the young people to obtain credits for a place to live in.

Only the rent of the domain means that the City Hall’s incomes are estimated at 70 million euros until the end of the leasing period. The present rent is approximately 3,500 euro monthly, without VAT, depending on the type and surface of the household.