"Salford" postpones sale of "Knjaz Miloš"

Investment fund "Salford" has postponed the sale of company "Knjaz Miloš" due to crisis in global finance market.

According to the announcement, "Salford" intends to focus on further development of that company, which increased its market share of "aqua viva" water to 19% this year in Serbia, while the market share of energy drink "guarana" grew to 70% in Serbia and Montenegro.

"Danube foods group", owned by "Salford", announced in August that it would sell "Knjaz Miloš" by the end of the year.

On that occasion, the Manager of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs in "Danube Foods Group", Rade Pribićević, ruled out the possibility of sale of stocks of "Knjaz" on the Belgrade Stock Exchange and he confirmed that "Pepsi" was one of the interested potential buyers of the Aranđelovac-based mineral water factory.

In addition to "Pepsi", the interest was also expressed by companies "Danone", "Coca-cola", "Carlsberg" and former owner of Italian "Peligrino", the famous brand of Italian mineral water whose name appears for the first time in local public.

The estimates are that the market value of "Knjaz Miloš", having in mind not only the capacities of the factory and source, but also the brand and distribution network, could reach 200m EUR.

According to the today's announcement, mineral water brand "Knjaz Miloš" kept its share of 44% in the mineral water market in 2008.

The company has started realization of the strategy for penetration of the market of Bosnia and Herzegovina and sale of "guarana" in Ukraine and it has also presented new products - low-energy soft drink "Mila", carbonated soft drink "špricer" and mineral water "aqua viva slim".

Last year, "Knjaz Miloš" sold 230m liters of products and projected growth of the sales in 2008 is 10%. According to some earlier announcements, "Danube foods group" plans to invest 8m EUR in "Knjaz Miloš" this year.