There were 61 Bulgarian companies planning to enter the Bulgarian Stock Exchange – Sofia (BSE) via an initial public offering (IPO) of securities or secondary public offering (SPO) of shares, investor.bg said on October 23, quoting own information and different announcements made to the BSE.

IPOs of seven firms and an SPO of one were expected to happen before the end of 2007.

Four of the IPO prospectuses – of Trace Group Hold, Hydroisomat and CBA Asset Management – and an SPO – of Etropal – had already been approved by the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC). Other three were in an advanced stage of the approval procedure, namely those of Enemona, Billboard and Durvoobrabotvane-VT and Herti, investor.bg said. Quite recently, the FSC refused to give green light to the prospectus drafted by Finance Engineering.

The companies that were expected to premiere on the stock exchange in 2008 were Lev Ins, Investbank, Agria, Astera, Sopharma Trading, Lakprom, Synergon Hotels, Armeets insurance company, Evropa chain of retail stores and others.

Only a few SPOs of private companies had successfully made it to the BSE in the past few years, with DZI Bank, BACB, EuroIns, Media Systems, Lomsko Pivo, Pirinsko Pivo, FIA Bulgaria and Prime Tourist among them.

Meanwhile, the state had also managed to complete the SPO procedure for a number of companies, partly or majority owned by it, like the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company, Bulgartabac Holding, Bulstrad, Energoremont Holding, Alcomet, Sopharma, Albena, Balkancar Record and others. After a merger between Eurohold and Starcom Holding, the new Eurohold Bulgaria had been traded on BSE since the beginning of 2007. A new listed company on the stock exchange was also Zlaten Lev Holding, which became public because of legal requirement that companies with more than 10 000 shareholders were subject to obligatory listing.