Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria Lends 35.5 Mln Euro to Sofia BT Cigarette Factory

The agreement covers a 13 million euro 11-month overdraft and a 22.5 million euro six-month credit.

Sofia BT is one of the two remaining cigarette factories within the Bulgartabac Holding group, which is 80% controlled by the state. The holding company sold last year two cigarette factories one based in the city of Plovdiv and the other one in Stara Zagora. It transferred their production operations to the factories in Sofia and Blagoevgrad prior to the sale.

Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria after-tax profit dropped 57% on the year to 47.5 million levs ($36.4 million/24.3 million euro) in the first nine months of 2009 despite a 15% rise in loans. The bank's loan portfolio increased to 4.73 billion levs in the nine months through September from 4.12 billion levs a year earlier.

Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria had a capital adequacy ratio of 17.3%, above the minimum of 12% required for banks in Bulgaria.

The bank, part of Austrian banking group Raiffeisen Zentralbank, ranked as the fourth largest Bulgarian lender in terms of assets at the end of September when the country's banking system comprised 24 domestically-registered banks and six branches of foreign lenders.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)