June 23 (SeeNews) - Slovakia's Eco-Invest has offered to recapitalise Slovenian hygiene and tissue paper producer Paloma with 18 million euro ($20.5 million), after Polish-based private equity fund Abris Capital pulled out of a recapitalisation agreement it signed with Paloma last year, Ljubljana-based media reported.
Eco-Invest intends to inject fresh capital into Paloma and then make a share purchase offer of 4.01 euro per share, or 0.71 euro more than the Polish company, daily Dnevnik reported on Wednesday.
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In other words, if Slovenian state holding company SDH accepts the offer, it will earn 1.71 million euro more than if it had sold its 71% stake in the company to Abris, Dnevnik noted.
Eco-Invest has also announced it will invest an additional 70 million euro in the tissue paper producer and create 200 new jobs, taking the employee count above 1,000.
In January this year, Paloma's shareholders approved a proposal made by Abris Capital Partners to raise the Slovenian company's capital by 15 million euro, following the completion of a tender call for recapitalisation.
After Abris's withdrawal in June, SDH said it will initiate the sale of the Paloma shares it owns if the company fails to successfully complete a cap hike.
Back in November, around the time Paloma and Abris signed the recapitalisation agreement, SDH said its supervisory board has approved selling the state-owned 71% stake in the company. The buyer was not named.
In 2014, Paloma posted revenue of 87 million euro and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 6.7 million euro. It has four paper machines with total paper production capacity of 72,000 t and 28 converting lines with capacity of 93,000 t.
($=0.8779 euro)