Everyone knows Petru Prunea, 63, to be an authoritative leader and a man with a strong personality. His employees at Broker know it best, as they had ended up smoking in the bathrooms of the company’s headquarters on 119, Calea Motilor in Cluj- Napoca, like high-school kids, after he had banned smoking on the premises.

However, the company he founded and has run since 1994 was shaken by the biggest scandal on the capital market after 2000 at the beginning of the year, after the head of the Deva office of Broker was found to have defrauded customers by almost one million euros. An extensive probe of the National Securities Commission, the supervisory authority of the capital market, followed and found problems at other branches, too, leading to the harshest penalties on the Stock Exchange thus far: total fines worth 843,000 RON (200,000 euros) for the company and 22 of its employees and a five-year suspension for Prunea from the capital market. How did Petru Prunea, who developed one of the biggest businesses on the capital market, with about 10,000 customers and 15,000 shareholders, end up being held responsible for such serious wrongdoings? Those who have worked with him say that everything stemmed from his wish to control everything and from not having delegated part of the responsibilities as the firm was growing.

”If Mr. Prunea had the inspiration to work more closely with the members of the board of directors in making decisions, maybe things wouldn’t have got where they are now,” says Anton Ionescu, 68, Broker’s third shareholder, who controls 4.16% in the company. He took over as chairman of Broker in March, after a ‘coup-de-palace’ whereby he and other members of the Board of Directors, who in turn were significant shareholders of the firm, ousted Prunea from the helm.

”Prunea regarded himself as the undisputed owner of the firm; he wanted to control everything and maybe this is what caused what happened to him. There wasn’t any trouble at first, the trouble started as the company was growing. When you already have hundreds of employees, very much money and the power is in the hands of only one man, trouble begins,” Ionescu explains. He says he joined Broker as a shareholder in 2005, after having concluded his political career as a deputy, which included a short stint as Transports Minister of the Radu Vasile Cabinet in 1998.

”I had known Petru Prunea for many years, as we were co-workers when I was the dean of the constructions faculty (of the Technical University of Cluj – i.e.). I was happy with the idea of working together, because he was one of the first people to have taken the step from socialism to the capitalist economy and founded this brokerage firm,” Ionescu recalls his first meeting with Broker.

”People change, they no longer communicate, no longer work with others like they used to, and show sides of their personality that may have not been visible in the beginning,” says Ioan Cartis, 73, the principal shareholder of Broker, with 8.22%.

Petru Prunea says he has always taken shareholder opinions into account, when they showed common sense, but believes he is the only member of the board capable of running Broker, given his expertise with the capital market, after the fourteen years of almost constant growth of the firm he has run.

A day before CNVM’s verdict, Prunea said he was thinking of stepping down as chief executive of Broker, and even sell his shares, after having been ousted as chairman by the other board members, two of which had been brought into the company by him. Now, he is determined to stick with Broker, even though he says CNVM’s penalties against it and against him could prove fatal for the firm.