BT Invest is the new owner of Bulgartabac

The Supervisory Board of the Privatisation and Post-Privatisation Control Agency approved today the contract for the sale of almost 80% of Bulgartabac Holding’s shares to BT Invest, registered in Austria. Six members of the Supervisory Board voted for the deal and only the representative of BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party) Rusi Statkov voted against it, Klassa daily reported.

On August 31, the Privatisation Agency officially announced BT Invest Bulgartabac’s buyer. In a period of three days, after the buyer effects the remittance, the shares can be transferred to the new owner.

The company was registered in April 2011 and is a subsidiary of VTB Capital of Cyprus, which in turn holds a 75% stake in Russia's Foreign Trade Bank. On August, BT Invest offered a price of €100.1 mln for 79.83% of Bulgartabac’s shares. In addition, the buyer has undertaken a commitment to invest of BGN 7 mln in the company over the next two years and to purchase 5,000 tonnes of tobacco over the next five years.

However, there are many doubts regarding the deal because the buyer is the offshore company VTB Capital. The other 25% stake is in the hands of Atanas Bostandjiev, a Bulgarian who heads the London office of VTB Capital. The Russian bank has not disclosed its client who will be the real owner of the tobacco holding company.

Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism Traicho Traikov assured that last month the State had withdrawn BGN 50 mln from Bulgartabac Holding’s accounts. This is the amount of the dividend which the holding company must pay to the State. Therefore, BSP’s allegations that there is more money in Bulgartabac than the buyer has offered are groundless, according to Traikov.

It turned out that the political parties with representatives in the Supervisory Board of the Privatisation and Post-Privatisation Control Agency had made sure that the deal would go easy. As a respond to a question of Klassa to the parties’ headquarters MRF (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), sources said that the question of how their representative in the Supervisory Board, Sevdzhan Sadkaev, would vote had not been discussed. The representative of the Blue Coalition, Dimitar Bachvarov from DSB (Democrats for Strong Bulgaria) was not instructed either and said he will vote conscience-wise. Petar Petrov from the Ataka party described the price of €100.1 mln as ‘very good’. Only BSP stated that its representative would vote against the deal. The other two members of the Supervisory Board are Julia Nenkova and Orlin Vassilev from GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria).

According to Valentin Nikiforov, Vice President of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), as early as February-March 2012, the parent company of the buyer can easily be sold again. “We ask who the buyers behind the sale contract are,” said Nikiforov.

Therefore, the actual owner should be revealed during the negotiations on the finalisation of the deal.

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