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Veolia Water takes majority stake in Sofiyska Voda

Mon, Jun 14 2010 14:18 CET

byNick Iliev

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Veolia Water takes majority stake in Sofiyska Voda

Photo: Assen Tonev

Veolia Water has inked an agreement which will see them acquire a number of United Utilities' activities in Europe, including the Bulgarian Sofiyska Voda, a company media statement said on June 14 2010.

The company will acquire a controlling 58 per cent stake in Sofiyska Voda, which runs water supply and treatment services for the capital, serving 1.3 million inhabitants. United Utilities has offloaded more of its non-regulated interests after agreeing a deal worth 174.2 million pounds sterling with Veolia Water UK.

Moreover, Veolia Water will emerge as the leading industrial shareholder, with a 26 per cent stake in AS Tallinna Vesi, a company that provides water supply and treatment services for Tallinn, Estonia, serving more than 400 000 people. It will also take a 33 per cent stake in Aqua SA, the company operating water supply and treatment services for the city of Bielsko Biala and its environs in southern Poland, serving more than 300 000 people.

Last summer, it emerged that UK water company United Utilities is reviewing key assets that could lead to the sale of assets worth more than 800 million pounds sterling, which also included the operations in Sofia.

The UK’s largest listed company said it planned to offload assets that are not regulated by local authorities and terminate a meter installation contract with British Gas Trading, a water facilities upgrading contract in Townsville, Australia, and discontinue operations in Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, and the Philippines.

The French firm Veolia Water said it will become the "leading player" in the non-regulated water sector in the UK as a result of the takeover.

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Comments

Anonymous Crazy Ivan Tue, Jun 15 2010 22:12 CET
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Water will become a Casus Belli in the near future.
It is an issue between The Nile countries and will become an issue
in former Mesopotamia,Turkey and Syria

Anonymous Karel Yurian Mon, Jun 14 2010 19:26 CET
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Now watch the hike in prices for the water utility just as we in Bulgaria can least afford it - the greedy French Utilities are only interested in exploiting Bulgaria's lack of infrastructure investment on the back of EU grants because they cannot make such lucrative profits in their own country. Phooey to this so-called series of benefits for Bulgaria the only beneficiaries are the share-holders again ..

Let's hope that the supposed similar privatisation that is proposed for Sofia and the other cities' municipal solid waste programme doesn't end up the same way. The Government [...]

 Read the full comment should listen to the reporters and correspondents here who have proposed solution which offers the best way forward rather than the dogma of the financial wizards (yes like those who brought on the misery for the rest of Europe over the past years.

This economical plight of Bulgaria hasn't been helped by the lack-a-daiseyical control of the property speculators from the UK -- buying up cheap property (which is considerably cheaper than in their own country) and even using the pretext of so-called Born-again Religiosity as the means to enter the country and to gain a work permit for doing so only then using this as a pretext to exploit the lax property controls. ) We see it time after time after time and now these foreigners baulk at any intervention when they know full well the consequences for the indigenous Bulgarians. All this and these privatisations are only here and brought to Bulgaria as a ruse to exploit us.

The Government needs to stand fast against this and put measures in place to prevent such exploitation quickly.


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Sofiyska Voda

Milena Petrova has been appointed senior manager of the communications department of Sofia’s water utility company Sofiyska Voda. Petrova has been with the company since December 2009. She previously worked in the print media in Bulgaria for five years, and was a press officer in the office of Sofia’s regional governor. Petrova has also worked as a public communications expert at the 40th National Assembly. She has a degree in international relations from Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski.

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