Four Show Interest to Advise Sale of Serbia's Largest Drug Maker Galenika

One letter of interest was placed by a consortium comprising France's Rothschild & Cie and Serbian Citadel Financial advisory, as well as Serbian environmental auditing company Dekonta, Serbian law firm Drazic, Beatovic i partneri and a Slovakian company calling itself CoMeth s.r.o., the asset-selling agency said in a statement. The statement said that the Centre for Intellectual Property and Marketing also took part in the bid.

Another letter of interest was placed by a consortium comprising French bank BNP Paribas, Serbian auditing and consulting companies BDO BC Excel and BDO BC Excel TAS and Serbian law firm Karanovic and Nikolic. The statement said that Romanian pharmaceutical company Dorin Toderas and Serbian company calling itself Radomir Putnik also took part in the bid.

The third letter of interest came from French banking group Societe Generale in consortium with with Serbian law firm Advokati Bojovic, Dasic, Kojovic.

The fourth letter of interest was placed by Austria's UniCredit CAIB, together with Serbian law firm Bojovic, Dasic, Kojovic, Serbian accounting firm Baker Tilly Western Balkans, UK pharmaceutical consulting firm GroupH Ltd and consulting firm TMLH Consulting from the U.S., the statement said.

Serbia’s Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said in November that the government will offer Galenika for sale in the spring of 2009. He did not say what stake in Galenika the government plans to offer for sale.

Galenika is one of the six major Serbian state-owned companies, in which the government can offer for free up to 15% equity to all Serbian citizens who have not taken part in privatisations so far and who have turned 18 as of December 31 once these companies are offered for sale.

Galenika (www.galenika.co.yu), which is 100%-state-owned, exports its production to countries of Southeast Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Asia.

Its net profit fell to 596 million dinars ($9.08 million/ 6.97 million euro) in 2006 from 1.9 billion dinars in 2005 under the latest available figures. However, its 2006 revenue rose to 7.3 billion dinars from 5.8 billion in 2005.

(1 euro= 85.4704 Serbian dinars)