April 25 (SeeNews) - Plamen Bobokov, founder and chairman of Bulgaria's Prista Oil Holding, denied on Tuesday local media reports that Prista has submitted a binding offer to acquire the assets of Czech power utility CEZ Group in the country.
"Prista Oil is not taking part in a procedure for the purchase of the CEZ companies in Bulgaria and therefore has not submitted a binding offer," Plamen Bobokov, founder and chairman of Prista Oil Holding, told SeeNews in an e-mailed statement.
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Bulgarian news daily 24 Chasa reported last week that several companies had submitted offers for the purchase of CEZ's assets in Bulgaria.
Two of them are foreign-based - Romania's Electrica and Czech Republic-based Energo-Pro, according to 24 Chasa. Four of the companies mentioned in the newspaper article are based in Bulgaria - Minstroy Holding, Prista Oil, Future Energy and Bobov Dol thermal power plant.
The structure of CEZ Group in Bulgaria includes CEZ Distribution Bulgaria AD, the public supplier of electricity and a licensed trader CEZ Electro Bulgaria, licensed electricity trader CEZ Trade Bulgaria and Varna thermal power plant. The operations of those companies are managed and coordinated by CEZ Bulgaria EAD.
CEZ Group announced in January it had decided to study the options related to its equity investments in Bulgaria based on the interest of several unnamed investors. It did not elaborate.
In July 2016, CEZ Group said it has filed a request for international arbitration worth hundreds of millions of euro against Bulgaria over the country’s failure to observe the investment protection provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty. CEZ Group added it had has repeatedly asked the Bulgarian government for speedy rectification of that state of affairs and for compensation for the damage caused, recalling that in November 2015 it had sent a dispute notice to the Bulgarian government, in which it requested amicable settlement of the dispute.
Prista Oil Holding's main line of business is production of car batteries and lubricants. Its blue-chip unit Monbat [BUL:5MB] is in charge of the car batteries manufacturing operations.