The Bul Yard consortium has won the procedure for acquiring 75 per cent of the assets of the Varna shipyard.
The winner is to set up a joint venture with the state-owned Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar), the current owner of the shipyard. To this end, the negotiations are to begin at the start of next week.
After the initial failure of the privatisation procedure in August, four companies took part in the second tender launched in October - Aris Commodity Ltd of the United Kingdom, Bul Yard, Tsakos Bulgaria and AKB Fores.
AKB Fores and Aris Commodity fell out of the race, while the two shortlisted bidders were invited to sweeten their offers. Bul Yard had initially offered $ 14.333 million, while Tsakos Bulgaria had come up with $ 13.250 million.
After the financial parameters were improved, Bul Yard came first with $ 16.666 million. The company took the commitment to invest a total of $17.7 million in the shipyard in the next three years.
Tsakos Bulgaria lost after having proposed $15.6 million and committing to $11 million over a three-year period. On Tuesday, however, the company pledged an objection against the commencement of talks between Bul Yard and Navibulgare. Bul Yard has not met one of the nine requirements put forward to the candidate bidders, Kaloyana Dimitrova, member of the board of directors of Tsakos Bulgaria, said. The annual turnover of the consortium in the area of shipping, ship building and repair is below $60 million.
On Sunday, however, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Nikolai Vassilev said the procedure was a success. He voiced hopes the new owner of Varna shipyard would keep the 720-headcount and might even increase the staff next year.
The winner is to set up a joint venture with the state-owned Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar), the current owner of the shipyard. To this end, the negotiations are to begin at the start of next week.
After the initial failure of the privatisation procedure in August, four companies took part in the second tender launched in October - Aris Commodity Ltd of the United Kingdom, Bul Yard, Tsakos Bulgaria and AKB Fores.
AKB Fores and Aris Commodity fell out of the race, while the two shortlisted bidders were invited to sweeten their offers. Bul Yard had initially offered $ 14.333 million, while Tsakos Bulgaria had come up with $ 13.250 million.
After the financial parameters were improved, Bul Yard came first with $ 16.666 million. The company took the commitment to invest a total of $17.7 million in the shipyard in the next three years.
Tsakos Bulgaria lost after having proposed $15.6 million and committing to $11 million over a three-year period. On Tuesday, however, the company pledged an objection against the commencement of talks between Bul Yard and Navibulgare. Bul Yard has not met one of the nine requirements put forward to the candidate bidders, Kaloyana Dimitrova, member of the board of directors of Tsakos Bulgaria, said. The annual turnover of the consortium in the area of shipping, ship building and repair is below $60 million.
On Sunday, however, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Nikolai Vassilev said the procedure was a success. He voiced hopes the new owner of Varna shipyard would keep the 720-headcount and might even increase the staff next year.
