July 30 (SeeNews) - Croatia's government will discuss the progress in its plan for the purchase of the stake owned by Hungary's MOL in local oil and gas company INA [ZSE:INA-R-A] on Wednesday, energy minister Tomislav Coric said.
"I believe that by the end of this week we will adopt decisions that will open the door for an analysis and finally for an offer by the Croatian side to Hungary," Coric said in a video file published by Croatian public broadcaster HRT on Monday.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
In April 2018, the government selected a consortium comprising Morgan Stanley, Intesa Sanpaolo Group and Privredna Banka Zagreb [ZSE:PBZ] to advise it on the potential purchase of MOL's stake in INA, to be followed by a sale of INA's shares to a new strategic partner. The consortium had proposed to do the advisory work for 8.0 million euro ($8.9 million).
However, no contract has been signed with the selected consultant due to some disagreements on details of the document, Coric said, explaining why the consultant has not managed to estimate INA's value.
According to recent local media reports, the government might pick a new investment consultant to advise it on the planned deal.
MOL is the biggest shareholder in INA with a 49.1% stake. The Croatian government owns 44.8%, with the remaining 6.1% held by institutional and private investors.
Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said earlier that a government-appointed council in charge of negotiations with MOL had already defined the criteria for the purchase of the INA stake, while the advisor would be tasked with assessing INA's value and identifying possible strategic partners.
($=0.897321 euro)
INA-Industrija Nafte d.d. is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here