On December 5, Sofia Municipal Privatisation Agency (SMPA) decided on the buyer of Rope Lines (RL), the municipal company that runs the Vitosha lifts. The successful company, Vitosha Ski (VS), is owned by an offshore company registered in the Virgin Islands.
The deal was agreed at a price of 8.3 million leva, 100 000 leva above the minimum price for RL recorded in the competition conditions, Bulgarian-language Mediapool.bg reported. Bansko ski zone concessionaire, Ulen, offered the same amount. According to records of the juridical registries, the same person, Petur Georgiev Petrov, is part of the managing body of both companies.
SMPA executive director Dimitrov said, on November 6, that the sale of RL was absolutely legal. According to the Competitions and Auctions Act, SMPA was allowed to sell RL even if only one firm had submitted a bid, provided the offer met all the required conditions and criteria. “In this case all the conditions were fulfilled and the price was good,” Dimitrov said.
After purchasing RL, VS will own almost all the lifts and draglifts in Vitosha. Currently VS owns the chairlifts Rezana-1 and Rezana-2 and the additional equipments on Vitosha. VS is also the sole owner of Aleko Sport EAD Capital, which owns the rest of the lifts and drag lifts in Vitosha Nature Park. VS manager Kamen Kostadinov was also part of the management team of the company that owned the now-closed Sofia Land amusement park.
The coalition of environmental and civil organisations, To Sustain the Nature in Bulgaria, said, in a media statement issued on December 6, that it was very concerned about the SMPA auction because VS and Ulen are “connected and were behind Bansko Ski zone in Pirin National Park”. The environmentalists have repeatedly reported violations by Bankso ski zone construction and are worried this should not be repeated on Vitosha Mountain. “The sale of the two municipal lifts leads to a full monopoly of VS EAD over the transport infrastructure in Vitosha Nature Park, and a lack of social responsibility by SMPA,” the media statement said.
