BUCHAREST (Romania), August 10 (SeeNews) – Romania on Friday called an auction for a 54.8% state stake in chemical company Oltchim [BSE:OLT] for September 14.
Interested buyers will have to file their bids by September 13, according to the auction announcement posted on the website of Romania’s industry privatisation office OPSPI.
OPSPI said that the sealed-bid auction could be followed by negotiations or an open-cry auction, if needed. It did not elaborate.
In April, Romania received four non-binding bids for the Oltchim stake. Bids have been submitted by Romania’s Pegamont Ploiesti and Aisa Invest, Germany’s PCC SE, which holds 18.3% of Oltchim, and Russia’s JSC Tise.
Oltchim, listed on the Bucharest bourse, had accumulated debts totalling nearly 2.3 billion lei ($621 million/506 million euro) by the end of last year, finance ministry data showed.
On Thursday, Oltchim said it plans to convert into equity a 1.128 billion lei debt it owes to the state privatisation authority, AVAS. The company plans to raise its share capital by some 2.06 billion lei and offer 930.7 million lei worth of new shares to Oltchim's minority shareholders to ensure their stakes stay unchanged.
(1 euro= 4.5439 Romanian lei)