Bulgarian Packaging Company Yuri Gagarin BT Borrows 1.5 Mln Euro for Working Capital

The mortgage loan has a three-year term, Yuri Gagarin BT said in a statement.

"It carries an interest rate equal to the bank's basic interest rate plus 3.41 points," Yuri Gagarin BT said in the statement without elaborating. Further details were not immediately available.

The company announced in 2007 a 7.8 million levs ($5.6 million/4.0 million euro) plan to buy new machines for pre-printing and offset printing.

Yuri Gagarin was privatised in 2006 under a restructuring plan for the state-owned tobacco group Bulgartabak, which envisages the sale of most of its loss-making tobacco processing factories.

It turned to a 1.46 million levs loss for the first half of 2008 from a 2.84 million levs net profit for the same period last year, mainly due to lower revenues as result of the management strategy to close non-core and inefficient activities and diversify its client base away from the tobacco industry.

Yuri Gagarin BT, based in Bulgaria's second-largest city of Plovdiv, has packaging and cigarette filter making units, printing facilities and a unit for the production of spare parts.

Yuri Gagarin stocks last traded on Monday, when they closed 0.12% down at 53.8 levs.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)