Bulgaria's government will offer again for privatization through the Sofia stock exchange a package of small state companies or stakes in such firms as part of its efforts to boost public revenues.

This will be the second attempt at privatization for the center-right government of Boyko Borisov since the beginning of its term last summer.

"This time the package will include eleven state companies, the most attractive of them being Montazhi Sofia, which deals with technological equipment, steel constructions, electric installations, industrial pipelines, reservoirs," Economy Minister Traicho Traikov said in an interview for Dnevnik daily.

The offered price for 100% stake in the company was not immediately clear. During the previous tender it was set at BGN 70 M, but proved to be too high and no bidders turned up.

The state will also try to attract buyers for some of the other companies considered to be among the most attractive, including Trade Tranzit Zone -Varna (46%), a 19.45% stake in Duty Free Zone-Burgas and a 10.86% stake in Bulgarian ice-cream making unit of Nestle SA.

In the middle of December last year the government surprisingly announced that state-run LB Bulgaricum EAD, owner of Nestle Ice Cream Bulgaria, a leading ice cream maker in the country, will not sell its 10.86% stake on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.

The Sofia-based Privatization Agency, which made the announcement, did not make clear what prompted the decision, but now Nestle sale is back on the agenda.

Nestle SA, the world's biggest food company, currently owns a 89,14% stake in the company.

The exact date of the upcoming bourse auction launch will be clear after the announcement for it is promulgated in the State Gazette, which is expected to happen in the short term.

The privatization through the Sofia stock exchange does not entail the listing of the offered companies.

The privatization tender, through which Bulgaria sought to rake in some BGN 80 M of additional revenues at the end of last year, managed to sell state stakes in only eight companies on Sofia stock exchange.

Bulgaria's privatization agency earned a mere BGN 2,885 from the transactions, since seven of the stakes were settled with compensatory notes and only one of the asset, a 0.114% stake in Plovdiv-based Podemstroymash, was paid in cash.

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