Bulgaria’s Meat Company Mekom So Far Not Affected by Global Crisis - Official

“The crisis has not affected Mekom's work or Mekom partners so far,” the company’s president Stefen Raitchev said in an interview for local daily Pari.

Even though the total consumption in Bulgaria is expected to shrink due to the crisis, people will continue to buy food products, he added.

“People would probably go short in lodging and vehicle purchase. But this [the shrinking consumption] will not affect the food processing industry,” Raitchev said.

“Mekom’s profit this year will be higher than planned,” he added, without elaborating.

Mekom will not be able to fulfill all orders it received from Croatia, Italy and Greece in December because their amount is too large, Raitchev said.

The company, whose production capacities are located in the northeastern town of Silistra on the Danube, went public on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) in March. It hoped to raise some 23.5 million levs ($15.63 million/12.03 million euro) for capacity expansion and investments abroad, but has secured 5.728 million levs in the placement. Mekom offered up to 10,682,800 shares with a face value of 1.0 lev in the IPO.

The company expects its consolidated net profit to reach 28.9 million levs in 2012, compared to 4.3 million levs for 2007.

Mekom shares, last traded on December 4 on the BSE, edged down to 2.08 levs from 2.09 levs a day earlier.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)