Equest Investments Balkans Limited, currently Trans Balkan Investments Limited (TBIL), is proceeding with plans to sell TechnomarketDomo, a key asset from the portfolio of companies it owns in Bulgaria, in order to boost liquidity.

This becomes clear from a statement of the investment company, published on London Stock Exchange, which announces TBIL financial interim results for the first half of last year and describes how TechnomarketDomo sale is proceeding.

"The relentless pressure on liquidity, coupled with the stagnant if not falling value of the company's remaining property portfolio during 2010, have led the Board to the regrettable conclusion that the only realistic option for TBIL is to sell its 61.80% holding in TechnomarketDomo N.V.," the company's chairman said in the statement.

In October TBIL secured a 12-month deferral on its EUR 17 M debt to the State General Reserve Fund (SGRF) of Oman.

In return the fund agreed to pay SGRF a fee of EUR 8.5 M as soon as it has available funds, 15% of the net proceeds of the sale and 30% of any part of the net proceeds of the sale if the proceeds are in excess of EUR 45 M.

Trans Balkan Investments Limited announced in the summer last year that it is holding negotiations for the sale of TechnomarketDomo Group BV (TMD).

TechnomarketDomo, currently 61.8% owned by TBIL, is the Dutch parent company for the company's investments in the retail electronics sector in South East Europe, which includes the Bulgarian Technomarket retail and wholesale operations and the Romanian Domo retail operations.

Trans Balkan Investments Limited has been offloading assets from the portfolio of companies it owns in Bulgaria, including a few former cinema sites, in order to boost liquidity over the past year and a half.

At the beginning of November the company announced it has signed a preliminary agreement for the sale of Urvich, the former cinema site, with an unnamed Bulgarian real estate development company. The deal was inked on 6 October 2010, the company said without disclosing its financial parameters.

At the beginning of August TBIL sold Iztok cinema in the Bulgarian capital Sofia to Billa Nedvijimosti EOOD for EUR 1.43 M.

The sale of Evropa Palace, one of two remaining former cinema sites in Sofia, owned through its subsidiary, Pelican BVI, is expected to be finalized in the short term, the gross proceeds amounting to EUR 1.5 M.

At the end of December 2009 it sold the former Rodakar plant, a 12 300 sq m retail warehouse property in the coastal city of Varna, to Creditanstalt Bulus, part of Unicredit Leasing, in a EUR 9,93 M deal.

The company sold its controlling interest in Serdika, a development site in the centre of Sofia. The total consideration payable in relation to the development amounts to EUR 9.175 M in cash, of which EUR 7.34 M is attributable to its subsidiary Equest Balkan Properties (EBP).

Earlier Equest also released its 21.2% share in the Bulgarian branch of the financial firm Uniqa International, as well as Avto Union.