July 8 (SeeNews) - The England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) has rejected the complaints by British Virgin Islands-registered special-purpose investment vehicle Empreno Ventures against the deal that resulted in the sale of Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), the telco said.
The London-based court dismissed the complaints filed by Empreno Ventures Limited and its Luxembourg-registered 100%-owned subsidiary LIC Telecommunications, which claimed that the sale was a sham and ought to be revised, BTC said in an e-mailed statement last week.
"The company was acquired following a completely legitimate and competitive sale procedure. A number of times and through different methods the claimants have tried to challenge the acquisition process, but unsuccessfully," Spas Roussev, chairman of the supervisory board and controlling shareholder of BTC, said as quoted in the statement.
In February 2018 the High Court of Justice in London rejected the claims filed by Empreno Venture and LIC Telecommunications. Russian businessman Dmitry Kosarev, the owner of Empreno, argued that LIC Telecommunications holds a stake in BTC via its shares in InterV which were allegedly dishonestly appropriated by a unit of Russian financial group VTB.
In August 2016 a consortium led by Bulgarian businessman Spas Roussev and comprising various minority investors, including VTC Capital and Luxembourg-based Viva Telekom, completed the acquisition of BTC. The transaction was partly financed through a debt facility extended by VTB Group to the consortium.
In November 2015 the consortium was announced winner of an open auction for 100% of the shares of Luxembourg-based holding company InterV Investment with a final bid of 330 million euro ($370.2 million). The sale was launched after InterV failed to repay at maturity a 150 million euro bridge loan secured via a share pledge over 100% of the shares of InterV.
BTC, which operates under the brand name Vivacom, competes with Mtel, a unit of Telekom Austria, and the local unit of Norway's Telenor.
($ = 0.8915 euro)