SOFIA (Bulgaria), February 2 (SeeNews) – Units of Citigroup, KBC, Raiffeisen and Renaissance Capital are the four candidates offering to advise the sale of Bulgarian majority state-owned tobacco group Bulgartabac Holding, the government's Privatization Agency said on Tuesday.
The tender commission will have 14 days to study the offers placed by the four bidders and rank them, the asset-selling agency said in a statement.
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Citigroup is bidding through with its brokerage and securities arm Citigroup Global Markets.
Belgium's KBC group participates through a tie-in comprising its securities and brokerage company KBC Securities NV and Bulgarian-based law firm Tokushev&Partners.
Austria’s Raiffeisen banking group is bidding through its unit Raiffeisen Investment, while Russian-based Renaissance Capital investment bank is running in the tender through Renaissance Securities.
Eligible bidders in the tender are international investment banks which ranked among the top 20 in the M&A League Tables of Financial Advisers, published by Mergermarket, in at least one of the three rankings - global, European, Central and Eastern European (CEE) - between 2007 and 2009, the Privatization Agency said when the advisory contract was tendered in December.
The consultant should prove it has a successful track record in advising privatizations or mergers and acquisitions (M&A), or that it has advised at least one successful privatization in the tobacco industry in the past three years.
The government plans to sell Bulgartabac Holding by the middle of 2010, Economy Minister Traycho Traykov said in December.
Bulgartabac controls around 50% of the domestic tobacco market, according to estimates of the Economy Ministry.
Bulgartabac, 80%-owned by the state, comprises more than 10 subsidiaries in Bulgaria and several idled units abroad. Its privatization has been delayed for years by political wrangling.
Since Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, the holding group has been faced with tough competition from international majors like British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, Karelia Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco.