A company believed to be linked to the Vinprom Peshtera group is the new owner of the Bulgartabac cigarette factory in Plovdiv, the bulletin of the Central Depository showed. Sigma Consulting bought 78 per cent in the Plovdiv cigarette factory on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange for 30 million leva last week.

According to the commercial register and company registers Daksi and Apis, Sigma Consulting is co-owned by Svetoslav Zahariev and Nikolai Yanev. Zahariev is reportedly close to Plovdiv businessman Georgi Gergov, while Yanev is believed to have links to the Vinprom Peshtera group.

Vinprom Peshtera denied any knowledge of the transaction.

Neither Zahariev, nor Yanev could be reached for comment. Neither were Atanas Petrov and Anton Shterev, the businessmen tipped as the behind-the-scenes owners of Vinprom Peshtera, available to shed light on the plans for the cigarette factory which is located in the center of Plovdiv.

Sigma Consulting will now have to make a buy-out offer for the minority stake in the factory that it does not already own.

Gergov told Dnevnik that Sigma Consulting was created by himself and the Vinprom Peshtera group to bid for the Stochna Gara train station in Plovdiv. Gergov said that he had to cash in his stake when he ran for mayor of Plovdiv and now Sigma Consulting is wholly-owned by the Peshtera group.

In related news, it transpired that the Chimimport group was the buyer of a majority stake in another Bulgartabac cigarette factory, also sold on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange last week.