With specially designed areas inside its branches and mobile sales teams, BCR is attempting to gain as big a slice of the burgeoning market of new home transactions as possible.

BCR, the largest bank in the system, has recently launched a new financing concept for real estate, which brings together direct partnerships with real estate developers and tailors offers for final buyers.

The "Real estate centre" concept has been implemented in 22 branches of BCR network, where customers can visit dedicated areas under this brand, to consult with advisers who specialise in real estate investments and financing. Six regional centres will coordinate the 22 sales units (with 10 in Bucharest), where the mobile teams will operate to secure partnerships with real estate developers.

Nicolae Danila, BCR's chief executive, has resigned from his position and will leave the bank on December 1, one year after the Austrians at Erste effectively took over. The interim CEO position will be go to Manfred Wimmer, the architect of Erste's acquisition of BCR.

Sources on the financial market say that Danila and the Austrians did not share the same vision of development for the largest bank in Romania.

Danila would have liked a more conservative approach in terms of strategy, while Erste wants a faster development, considering the bank has lost market share within the past year.

Danila will leave BCR with a substantial compensation package, which sources on the market put at "around 4 million euros".

Michael Lloyd, managing partner of Baneasa real estate project in northern Bucharest, which is expected to receive investments worth around 1.8bn euros, believes that in light of the real estate market's current climate (which is witnessing a chaotic development) Baneasa shareholders would not begin a project of this size.

According to Lloyd, over the past year the domestic real estate market has seen land prices shoot up, a situation difficult to anticipate several years ago.

"We estimated land prices would drop in July 2007 due to the shrinking number of speculative projects, but we can't confirm this until the end of this year.

On November 6, RCS&RDS will put up for sale on the London Stock Exchange 74.436 Global Depositary Receipts (GDR, representing its non-voting preference shares), at a price ranging between 5.25 and 7.25 dollars.

The telecom operator could raise between 390 million and 540 million dollars, with the price of RCS&RDS securities set depending on demand. At present, the global stock markets are experiencing decline, which could influence the price of RCS&RDS' GDRs will be quoted.

The operator plans to use the funds from London to enter other markets in the region, and develop its mobile telephony network in Romania.

The offer also includes an overallotment option for 4.