Sale of Bulgartabac Back on The Menu

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 05/21/2009

Details of how Bulgartabac is to be privatized might be known by the end of this week, according to a Novinite report. Quoting the Novinar Daily, the report said Bulgaria's Privatization Agency had indicated that Bulgartabac Holding would be privatized as a package including its two factories in Sofia and Blagoevgrad, and a smaller plant in the village of Yasen, close to Pleven. But the method of privatization is still to be announced, possibly by the end of this week. Last year, Bulgartabac sold two of its plants - in Plovdiv and in Stara Zagora - through the Stock Exchange, and, at the end of the year, the Bulgarian parliament voted to remove Bulgartabac from the list of state-owned companies that cannot be privatized. Meanwhile, Novinite reported also that excise taxes were the subject of conversation yesterday when Bulgaria's Deputy Finance Minister, Kiril Zhelev, met with Philip Morris' director of corporate affairs for Bulgaria and Romania, Peter Imre. Imre was said to have denied that Bulgartabac's privatization was a part of the discussions, and to have refused to comment on whether or not PM might be interested in acquiring the Bulgarian company. Enditem