April 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Recocycling is seeking the approval of the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) to acquire Targovishte-based former batteries manufacturer EnerSys, the antitrust regulator said.
Following the completion of the deal, EnerSys will no longer operate in the same field as prior to the acquisition, the competition regulator said in a statement on Wednesday.
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According to the regulator's statement, Recocycling is part of a group of companies owned by private individual Dimitar Popov, which are active in different markets in the country. Considering that Recocycling and the companies in its group are not economically activity in the markets in which EnerSys has operated, the transaction is not expected to affect competition on the local market, the regulator noted.
Interested parties have until April 21 to file before the CPC any statements regarding the transaction.
In 2019, the board of directors of US-based electric battery manufacturer EnerSys approved a plan to shut down its Targovishte plant for batteries for diesel-electric submarines. The management decided that future demand for batteries of diesel-electric submarines was not sufficient given the existing number of competitors in the market, the US-based company said at the time, adding that it intends to sell the plant.
According to the most recent financial statement of the EnerSys Bulgarian unit, published on the website of the commercial register, the company recorded a net loss of some 8 million levs ($4.9 million/4.1 million euro) in 2019, compared to a net loss of close to 15.6 million levs in 2018. The financial statement also showed that at the end of 2019, EnerSys Holdings (Luxembourg) Sarl, part of US-based EnerSys, held a 99.79% stake in the Bulgarian company.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)