Bulgaria will list its 33% minority stake in E.ON, one of the three power distributors in the country, to enliven the local stock exchange and boost revenues, the economy and energy minister announced on Tuesday.

“A privatization intermediary is yet to be selected, which means that the stake will be listed in about three to five months,“ Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov told a news conference.

The minister expressed the hope that the listing will trigger huge interest among investors and said revenues are expected to equal those from the tobacco monopoly sale, which are estimated at between BGN 80 M – BGN 100 M.

In 2004, the Balkan country sold 67% in its three power distributors to Germany's E.ON, Austria's EVN and Czech CEZ. E.ON serves households in North-Eastern Bulgaria

Fifty companies, currently managed by the economy ministry, will go into the recently set-up State Consolidation company, which bundles minority stakes in state-owned firms prior to sale, the government decided last month.

These are operating companies, which are not on the “prohibited list” that features state-owned, banned from privatization companies, such as Bulgartransgas, the gas pipeline operator.

The measure is part of an anti-crisis package the government adopted earlier in April and aims to raise some BGN 250 M from the sale of its minority stakes on the Bulgarian Stock exchange.

The money raised will be a contribution to closing the BGN 1.5 B budget deficit that emerged in the first quarter of 2010. The total effect of the 60 anti-crisis is supposed to amount to BGN 1.6 B.

Bulgaria's government has revised up to 1% its economic growth forecast for this year as recovering exports bolster the expansion.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s government previously estimated the economy would grow 0.3% after a contraction of 5.1% in 2009 as investments dwindled and consumption shrank.

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