The crisis gripping the real estate market has claimed its first major scalp – Expat Imoti real estate investment trust (REIT), listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE), has filed for voluntary liquidation, Dnevnik daily reported. Shareholders will meet on April 14 to vote on the proposal.

The company never really had any operations and barely qualified to hold its licence from the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC), the daily said. Its shares were only traded once, when 25 per cent of its shares changed hands on April 16 2008.

"The company never had the human resources to carry out any operations," the daily quoted Expat Imoti's executive director Alexander Boyadjiev, who said he was hired with the express purpose of liquidating the company. "Continued existence would only elicit additional expenses in the forms of fees due to BSE, FSC and the central depositary," Boyadjiev said.

The main share holders in Expat Imoti are Galenit Invest, with 85 per cent, and Liberty Metal Group, a company registered on the address of a Bourgas based shipyard.

Galenit Invest also owns 42 per cent in duty-free shops operator Transimpex, which in turn has ties to Bulgaria's richest businessman Vassil Bozhkov.

According to the shareholders meeting notice, the company will cease operations in light of the credcit crunch which has affected severely the real estate market and because the two primary shareholders no longer wish to invest in real estate, but rather redirect their resources in alternative fields of interest.

Expat Imoti is the first case when a real estate fund on the stock exchange will have to enter liquidation, but is unlikely to be the last.