Bulgaria has decided to sell two factories owned by Bulgaria's former tobacco monopolist Bulgartabac, located in Plovdiv and Stara Zagora, on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov said on March 18. "We want the privatisation to be done through the stock market, because that would be the most transparent way," Dimitrov said.

The bourse sale would include making a number of workers redundant, but the discharged employees will receive severance payments ranging between 30 000 and 36 000 leva. "An agreement between the trade unions and the managing boards of the Plovdiv and Stara Zagora cigarette factories was signed late on March 17," Dimitrov said. It would be the first time that a privatisation deal has not caused conflict between company managers and labour unions, he added.

In February, Bulgartabac's managing board tabled its proposal to strip the two plants of their licences to make cigarettes under Bulgartabac proprietary brands, but would be allowed to keep their general tobacco production licences.

The Government decided to sell Bulgartabac to a strategic investor several months ago at a meeting between the leaders of the three-way coalition that took place in the Bulgarian spa resort Hissarya. Soon after the summit the possible bankruptcy of the factories in Plovdiv and Stara Zagora became publicly known.

On March 18, Dimitrov said the potential sale of the two factories has attracted investor interest, but he could not say whether they were more interested in their tobacco business or in land that the factories owned.

Bulgartabac owns two more cigarette factories, in Sofia and Blagoevgrad, which attracted strategic investors. Should they improve their current condition, the state would have no problem selling them. "Four major players in the tobacco industry are interested in the Sofia and Blagoevgrad factories," Dimitrov said, as quoted by Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik.

The big multinational companies have demanded a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Energy to discuss the forthcoming sale of the factories in Sofia and Blagoevgrad. Dimitrov did not name the candidates but specified that they were big tobacco companies. The Bulgartabac privatisation strategy stipulated that those two would be sold to a strategic investor. If the bourse sell-off proposal goes through, that would be followed by changes to either the Privatisation Act or the sell-off strategy itself, Dnevnik reported.

British American Tobacco was one of the potential buyers during the last privatisation procedure for the four Bulgartabac cigarette factories, but the deal never materialised.