Pre-qualification tender for selection of strategic partner for IMK "14. oktobar" to be announced soon

The CEO of Industry of Machines and Components (IMK) "14. oktobar", Zoran Radmanovac, said that the prequalification tender for selection of strategic partner for that company should be announced soon.

He said that the state had converted the company’s debts into capital, and he added that the privatization of "14. oktobar" was expected to start as soon as those changes were registered in the Central Securities Registry.

- Republic of Serbia has become the owner of 79.33% of capital of IMK after the Ministry of Finance of Serbia signed the contract on conversion of the debt of 1.08 billion RSD that the factory owed to the state - said Radmanovac.

As he said, the conversion included 730m RSD that the factory owed to the Paris and the London Club for loans it took in the 1980's, as well as 350m RSD worth of tax debts of the factory.

The stockholders of "14 oktobar" are: Development Fund with 6.65%, Share Fund with 4.68%, Invest banka in bankruptcy with 2.5%, Jugobanka in bankruptcy with 2.3% and Komercijalna banka with 2.3%.

The Ministry of Economy announced earlier that IMK "14. oktobar" would be privatized during the year and that it would be done with the selection of the strategic partner who would be introduced to the majority ownership in that company through investments worth few tens of millions of euros.

Radmanovac said that the Kruševac-based factory had contracted export jobs worth 5-6m EUR in the sectors of components for power supply systems and military industry. IMK "14. oktobar" is one of the two largest companies in Kruševac, and it employs nearly 2,000 workers.