VTB Capital in Bulgaria

VTB Capital and Bulgaria’s Corporate Commercial Bank will purchase Bulgarian telecom company Vivacom for €737 million ($906 million) in September 2012, said CCB owner Tzvetan Vassilev, Kommersant reported Monday.

The Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, the country’s largest provider of fixed-line telephony and broadband internet, which operates the Vivacom brand name, was put up for sale in 2011 due to its inability to service its debts.

BTC said in a July 19 statement that the company’s creditors, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, agreed with two financial investors to sell the firm. The plan for the sale stipulates that the creditors will write off €1 billion from the company’s €1.65 billion overall debt and become minority shareholders, while the new investors will pay €130 million euros and take on €617 million in debts.

World Chess Federation president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov expressed interest in buying BTC during a recent visit to Bulgaria, but Ilyumzhinov’s spokesperson declined to comment to Kommersant on a possible purchase.

VTB Capital, the investment arm of Russia’s second-largest lender, VTB, also declined to comment to the paper.

If the sale goes ahead, BTC will be VTB Capital’s second asset in Bulgaria, after the bank bought the country’s largest tobacco producer, Bulgartabac, for €100 million last year.

Vassilev, who will become a partial owner of BTC if the deal goes ahead, also told the paper he hoped to invite a large strategic investor to buy into BTC within three to five years .(3413 печ зн)

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