03 novembre 2007
ECONOMY MINISTRY HOLDS INFORMATION MEETINGS COMPETITIVENESS PROJECT IN BULGARIA
As part of the second round of the project Establishing New Competitive Companies - Project 100, Economy Ministry has announced it would hold information meetings in the period November 6 - 9 2007, a ministry press statement said on November 2.
Meetings will be held in the towns of Teteven, Troyan, Harmanli, Haskovo, Lovech and Montana.
In these meetings the conditions for applying for Project 100 will be announced, as well as eligible activities, the schedule for the project and questions from candidates will be answered.
Application period was November 12 - 23, while decisions would be announced on November 30, Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) said.
Candidates would be trained and have to take a test from December 3 to 14. Business plans would be developed from December 17 2007 to January 25 2008. The plans would then be judged in January - February 2008, BTA said.
Official final results are to be announced in March 2008
Bulgaria's Bulgartabac saga resumes
Bulgaria’s largest tobacco producer Bulgartabac Holding (BH) is trying to stabilise its share on the domestic market and to increase exports, while awaiting a political decision on its future.
BH is currently listed for privatisation, Bulgarian language daily Dnevnik reported on October 22. Unlike previous attempts, the difference this time is that since the beginning of 2007 the cigarette market has been liberalised and local factories are competing with big multinational companies.
Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov said a decision on the privatisation would be announced after the October 28 municipal elections. It is not yet clear whether the state Privatisation Agency would offer investors the whole holding, would sell separately the factories and production would be concentrated in one factory, which could remain state-owned.
BH management’s initial intention was to list on the stock exchange the four factories in Sofia, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Blagoevgrad. However, for this to happen, changes were needed to the Privatisation Act, and the Cabinet has not yet approved such changes.
BH suggested that increases in excises be put into effect in three stages – equally for every year to 2010. If the Finance Ministry approves this proposal, the price of Victory cigarettes would go up by about 0.50 leva. BH executive director Hristo Lachev said that in 2008 the company should aim at preserving its market share but not at profits.
Market analysis shows that BH holds about 70 per cent of the domestic market.
“In the past four months there has been stabilisation of the market share and we think that it will stay at the same level to the end of the year,” Lachev said.
http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/bulgarias-bulgartabac-saga-resumes/id_25880/catid_23
Bulgarian Stock Exchange Unites with Deutsche Boerse
Bulgarian Stock Exchange has joined forces with Deutsche Boerse to use the German Xetra - exchange electronic trading system.
Deutsche Boerse will take the technological market control of the Sofia Stock Exchange, Institutional Investor informed.
For the 5-year agreement, Deutsche Boerse will handle trading of about 500 securities for 81 Bulgarian participants. Trading on Xetra is planned for the middle of 2008.
The Xetra system has been successfully implemented on the Irish Stock Exchange, Vienna Stock Exchange and the European Energy Exchange.
There are plans also be installed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hungarian Stock Exchange.
http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_1123371310
02 novembre 2007
FOREIGN SALES PUSH BULGARIA'S BULGARTABAC SALES UP IN JAN-SEP
Bulgaria's tobacco giant Bulgartabac Holding reported sales of 13 598 billion pieces for the first nine months of the year. The sales figure represents a 6.47 per cent year-on-year markup, the company said in a filing with the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE).
In value terms, sales of the group went up by 6.47 per cent on the year to 214.8 billion leva.
Domestic sales, however, were on the decline. Blagoevgrad-BT, Sofia-BT, Plovdiv Cigarette Factory AD and Slance Stara Zagora-Tabak AD reported a decline by 5.11 per cent to 10 391 billion pieces. Value-wise, sales shed 2.9 per cent on the year to 172.308 billion leva.
Foreign sales, however, increased by 76 per cent on the year to 3207 billion pieces and by 83.7 per cent on the year to 42.491 billion leva.
The bottom line performance for Bulgartabac Holding's subsidiaries for the first nine months of the year is as follows. Blagoevgrad-BT AD reported a net profit of 25.899 billion leva versus 15.439 billion leva in the same period a year ago. Sofia BT AD netted 6.826 billion leva as against 3.150 billion leva in the prior-year period. Slance Stara Zagora-Tabak AD reported a net profit of 2.843 billion leva, up from 2.271 billion leva in January-September 2006.
Plovdiv Cigarette Factory AD reported a net profit of 1.395 billion leva, a decline from 4.274 billion leva in the first nine months of last year. Pleven-BT AD reported net profit of 14 000 leva, a decrease against 94 000 leva in January-September last year.
26 octobre 2007
Piraeus Bank’s securities got more expensive by 4.14%
| 26 October 2007 | 02:05 | FOCUS News Agency |
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Sofia. UniCredito |
24 octobre 2007
60 companies mull BSE-Sofia debut
| 24 October 2007 | 01:49 | FOCUS News Agency |
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Sofia. The recent upheaval on the local stock market has drew up the attention to BSE-Sofia. Raising funds through floating part of the company shares on the stock exchange seem to have become cheaper than borrowing from banks. Besides listing on BSE-Sofia has somehow turned into a matter of presztige and a guaramtee for transparency. |
24 septembre 2007
Banks for sale
| 24 September 2007 | 06:47 | FOCUS News Agency |
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Sofia. The bank market in Bulgaria is now open. Smaller or larger shares of some of the Bulgarian banks are now offered for sale, Standart Daily informed. The reason is the competition between the large financial sharks born after some consolidations. The spread between the first 10 banks in the country and the rest becomes larger and larger. It is going to become even larger after the restrictions BNB introduced as of September 1st. Currently Investbank is in intensive research for buyers. On the other side Piraeus and Alpha Bank are probing the market searching for a way to increase their market shares in Bulgaria. EIBank is on the way to be sold to a foreign investor. If the deal is closed Banks with mainly Bulgarian capital will remain 8 of a total of 30 currently on the market. |
05 septembre 2007
Belgium's KBC Launches Take-over Offer for Bulgarian Insurer DZI
Belgian financial services group KBC said on Tuesday it would launch a takeover offer on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) for 15% in Bulgarian insurer DZI, the group said in a statement.
KBC bought 70% in the insurer last month and boosted its stake to 85% via acquisitions on the BSE.
After receiving regulatory approval, it will launch its offer on Wednesday, offering to pay EUR 96,3 per share, the same price it paid to buy its majority stake, which is also the price at which the shares have been trading for the past three weeks.
At this valuation, the total value of the remaining shares in DZI is EUR 40,2 M. The offer expires on October 2 and will be followed by DZI's delisting from BSE.
DZI, the former Communist-era state monopoly, is one of the leading companies on the Bulgarian insurance market, competing with the local unit of Germany's Allianz and Bulstrad, recently acquired by Vienna Insurance Group.
With US insurer AIG launching a similar takeover offer to minority shareholders in fixed-line telecom BTC, the Bulgarian bourse is set to lose before the end of the year two companies that together account for 15,5% of its total capitalisation.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=84944
30 août 2007
Bulgarian Robots - Saught in More Than 30 Countries
The Bulgarian company “Spesima” exports robots for over 30 countries worldwide, informs Deutsche Welle. The firm is cooperating with the German company Oskar Frech. How a small company turned into joint enterprise with German participation?
“It is very interesting that the Bulgarian products are competitive. This is really very interesting”.
Ioanis Ioanidis. manager of the German company, which is a world leader in the production of machines for casting of aluminum alloy, is not hiding his amazement. The company sells products in Europe, Asia and USA. Since 1994 Oscar Freh works with the small Bulgarian company Spesima, which is specialized in the production of automatisation systems.
“These are partners that secure what we need. They have the knowledge and the experience in the field and understand what we want. And this is very important”, says Ioanis Ioanidis.
The two companies cooperate in the production of machines for casting of aluminum alloy and of manipulators for them. The manipulators are robots, product of the Bulgarian company.
“The machine could be serviced by a man, but when our robots service it, the production quality and the productivity are much higher. Therefore, the robots are preferred for the servicing of the Oskar Frech machines”, explains the manager of Spesima Ventzislav Slavkov.
“The machines for casting of aluminium alloy are made by Oskar Frech in Germany and the manipulators that service them are produced in Bulgaria”.
Spesima is established in 1989 and has a small team of around 30 people. The robots are fully designed by Spesima – from the idea for the robot to the metal construction and the software – all is product of the Bulgarian specialists.
The company works with the Bulgarian academy of science and the Technical university in Sofia. Ventzislav Slavkov claims that Spesima has not problems with finding qualified personnel.
“We rely on young people. We work closely with the Technical university and we take people that are 3rd year students. They intern here, then they write their master thesis here. Later the best remain here to work.”
Due to the choosing of personnel, Spesima makes products which are beyond competition in Bulgaria and are competitive to that of producers from Western Europe, Japan and USA. The high quality of the Bulgarian products impressed the German high technology company Oskar Frech. Thus, in 1997 it buys 50% of the shares of Spesima and thus the small Bulgarian company with modest production amount turns into a joint enterprise with German participation and starts exporting its production to over 30 countries on 3 continents.
According to Ioanis Ioanidis Europe and the world market can only benefit from Bulgaria's accession to the EU:
“Because the Bulgarians have very good knowledge in certain fields and can apply it to the production. And the other way round – Bulgarian can only benefit from its contacts with companies like ours, with more than 30 years experience in the export”.
http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_1604591161
29 août 2007
BUSINESS CLIMATE INDEX IN BULGARIA DECREASES IN AUGUST
The general business climate index in Bulgaria decreased by 1.9 per cent in August 2007 compared to the previous month, says National Statistical Institute (NSI) survey.
Despite the decrease business climate in Bulgaria remained favourable.
Managers’ expectations concerning the present and future productivity are more optimistic. NSI business inquiries in industry registered increased inflation expectations in August 2007 compared to July 2007.
Business climate in construction remained favourable in August 2007 although it decreased by 2.2 per cent as compared to the previous month. The factor that influences negatively on the sector development is tough competition. Growing number of managers think that uncertain economic environment and labour force shortage are the main factors hindering their companies’ activity.
The composite indicator for business climate in retail remained unchanged in August as compared to July.
Business climate in services sector remained favourable and close to its July level. Managers were more moderate in their prognosis concerning their companies’ status in the next six months and concerning demand for their services.