The Privatization Agency (PA) is expecting the consultant on Bulgartabac deal to prepare and update the data room information on the tobacco monopoly's financial state, PA announced in an official statement.
This will enable the Privatization Agency to invite Austria's Tobacco Holding GmbH and Russia's consortium Rosbulgartabac to get acquainted with the updated data, so that the bidders may improve the offers' parameters.
On January 15 Bulgaria's Privatisation Agency asked only two of the bidders for Bulgartabac, Russia's consortium Rosbulgartabac and Austria's Tobacco Holding GmbH, to confirm the validity of their bids for an 80% stake in Bulgaria's tobacco giant.
The third candidate, Tobacco Capital Partners, was not mentioned in the statement, which prompted talks it might have been disqualified.
In mid -December the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the cancellation of a deal to sell Bulgartabac to Tobacco Capital Partners (TCP).
Fifteen key privatization deals in Bulgaria were exempted from judicial control when Parliament voted conclusively the amendments to the Privatisation Act February 7.
Bulgartabac Holding Company, the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, seven electricity distribution companies, the Vazov Engineering Works of Sopot, Kintex, Teraton, Balkan Air Tour, the Bulgarian River Shipping Corporation and Navigation Maritime Bulgare are the companies to which the new procedure of privatisation will be applied.