December 4 (SeeNews) - The creditors of Serbia's insolvent car battery maker Fabrika Akumulatora Sombor (FAS) have given the green light to a sweetened 7.35 million euro ($8.7 million) acquisition offer submitted by Switzerland-based Batagon International, Serbian media reported.
The insolvency administrator of FAS, Predrag Ljubovic, has said Batagon will have 15 days to sign a contract for the purchase of FAS and then a further 15 days to make the payment, news portal SoInfo reported on Saturday.
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"The company should start with 450-500 workers, and their number should later rise to 800, as it was in the past. FAS would mainly produce for the markets of Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France," SoInfo quoted Batagon's representative in the talks, Dalibor Matic, as saying.
Batagon had earlier acquired Serbian secondary raw materials recycling company Trgosirovina for 305,000 euro, which means that they want to close the production cycle, Ljubovic said.
Last month, three members of the creditors' board of FAS rejected an improved 7 million euro acquisition offer made by Batagon. The creditors of FAS had earlier rejected three offers made by Batagon International for the assets of the insolvent company. Batagon International originally offered 3 million euro for FAS in July and then sweetened their bid to 4 million euro. In August, the creditors rejected a 5.05 million euro offer and Batagon International increased the price to 6 million euro.
In May 2014, the Serbian government agreed to sell FAS to Greek company DEM Hellas owned by entrepreneur Eftimios Karanasios. However, DEM Hellas did not meet its contractual obligations and the Serbian government called a new tender for the sale of FAS in October 2016. The tender attracted no bids.
($ = 0.84295 euro)