The Bulgarian government has selected Morgan Stanley to advise it on the planned piecemeal sale of factories within state tobacco monopoly Bulgartabak, the Economy Ministry said on Tuesday.
The adviser is due to conduct due diligence at the factories and propose a strategy for the sell-off in three months.
The process is an important condition for Bulgaria's loans from foreign donors and for credit-rating upgrades.
Following a failed attempt to sell Bulgartabak as a whole, Bulgaria's parliament approved late last year a new strategy to sell its subsidiaries separately and close some loss-making units in a bid to attract major foreign investors.
So far, the world's largest tobacco firm Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris, part of Altria Group Inc, British American Tobacco and Korean KT&G have shown interest in the sell-off.
Industry majors shunned the previous Bulgartabak sell-off procedure, saying they preferred only its best factories.
Bulgartabak has 22 domestic subsidiaries, five in Russia and one each in Ukraine, Romania and Serbia.
Comments
Comments are closed.