Austria’s EDDSG Offers Highest Price for Majority Stake in Serbia’s River Shipping Company JRB

EDDSG has also offered to invest a further 15.7 million euro in JRB, the government's asset-selling agency said in a statement without providing a timeframe for the investment.

Serbia's government opened the tender for the sale of 69.99% of JRB in June and two bids were received by the October 31 deadline. The remaining shares are in the hands of a number of minority shareholders.

The second bidder, a consortium made of France’s CFNR, Croatia’s Dunavski Lloyd Sisak and Serbia’s Bomex Export Import, has offered to pay 8.4 million euro for the majority stake in JRB and to invest a further 15.2 million euro, the statement added.
 
“The Privatisation Agency will evaluate the two offers within a period of 30 days,” the statement said.

Serbia’s previous attempt to sell JRB failed earlier this year after the two top bidders, a consortium of Cyprus-registered Tamoza Trading and Singapore-based Daxin Petroleum Pte, and a consortium of Malta’s Palmali Shipping Sa and Palmali Holding Company Limited, withdrew from the sale talks.

JRB has one passenger and 16 cargo ships and a freight fleet capacity of 187,124 tonnes. The company’s profit rose to 578,000 euro last year from 305,000 euro in 2006. Its total revenue increased to 14.8 million euro in 2007 from 13.3 million a year earlier.

($=0.7764 euro)