The strong interest in the privatisation of the state-owned shipping company Navibulgare was evidence of a good marketing strategy, according to state Privatisation Agency (PA) chairperson Todor Nikolov. He spoke on the topic on August 26, on Bulgarian National Radio programme Nedelya 150 (Sunday 150).
A total of 23 companies expressed an interest in the deal and requested the relevant documents. There were 13 foreign and six Bulgarian companies and two companies were involved in advocacy and consulting.
In Nikolov’s opinion, the conditions placed on the candidate companies by the privatisation process were quite serious, and in some cases they were “hard”. This is because Navibulgare defines a sector in the Bulgarian economy and also influences the Bulgarian social sector strongly.
After filing the documents, the next deadline is September 10 2007. This is when the candidates have to present their completed application forms and show how they meet the deal conditions. The PA will announce which candidates have met the requirements at the end of September.
The comments that the final price could be about one billion leva are very serious and therefore the PA will announce the evaluation of the Navibulgare privatisation deal in stages, Nikolov said, as reported by Focus news agency on August 26.
On August 22, the PA announced the names of the companies that had requested the first set of documents. Bermuda-based Gearbulk Holding were interested in buying 70 per cent of the Navibulgare capital. Georgiev, Todorov & Co, the advocate company, and lawyer Yavor Iliev, from Bulgaria, requested documents for their clients. Other companies that were interested in buying Navibulgare were the Swiss firm Crude Oil & Derivatives Trading SA, the Indian Essar Shipping & Logistics Ltd, the Greek companies Athenian Sea Carriers Ltd and Chartworld Shipping Corporation, Dutch-based Muller Maritime Holding BV, TVA Shipping GmbH from Germany, the French CMA-CGM SA and Sider Navi SpA from Italy. Companies in the Czech Republic, UK and Nevis Island in the Caribbean also submitted application document.
The other Bulgarian investors who applied were Piraeus Bank Bulgaria, Bulbrokers, Forem Consulting and Chimimport.
Privatisation offers for Navibulgare could be filed by companies or consortiums that had hired ships with a minimum total DWT (gross tonnage) of 1.3 million tons in each of the past three years. Any consortiums must have a strategic investor that has a minimum share of 70 per cent of the enterprise’s capital. The other requirement is that the firm had to have concluded contracts for operational ship management and to own the relevant document, issued in accordance with the International Codex for Management of the Safe Ships Exploitation and Pollution Prevention.
The candidates also had to present a letter of engagement for finance, issued by a bank with a proved credit rating of at least A3 on Moody’s scale or an equivalent credit rating from Standard & Poor’s or Fitch IBCA. The bank also had to have provided credit for the purchase or renovation of ships for at least three billion euro, Bulgarian language Monitor reported on August 23.
According to Bulgarian-language daily Pari, Chimimport had the biggest chance of completing the deal for Navibulgare.
BT Development, which is owned by BalkanTourist Ltd – Liechtenstein and part of the former Multigroup, is also interested in the deal. There are also rumours that Hristo Kovachki wants the privatisation contract, Pari reported.
However, experts consider it still too early to say which companies will file indicative offers on October 18 2007, because some of the candidates are requesting the competition documentation solely out of curiosity, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported on August 23.
