| It's been a long haul for Calin Tomosoiu. Since the Romanian Bank for Development was set up as an independent commercial bank in 1990, he has been thinking about how it should be privatized. In 1994, he was appointed head of the new privatization team at the bank, which western bankers regard as the most advanced of Romania's four main public-sector banks. Three years on, Tomosoiu finally believes that his goal is in sight. Very little could be achieved until the Romanians had an authoritative assessment of their banking system. They obtained that in 1993, when consultancy firm McKinsey produced a report on the Romanian economy and banks. "It's like a Bible for economic reform," says Tomosoiu. In autumn 1993, the government announced that the Romanian Bank for Development would be the first state-owned bank to be sold off. The sale process picked up speed in 1994 when Coopers & Lybrand was hired to carry out due diligence and adjudged the bank as commercially viable and fit to face scrutiny by investors. By autumn of that year the privatization team had been brought together and began studying how state banks had been sold in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. |