Unsuccessful tender for Bujanovac’s DIB - "Philip Morris Participaticon" unable to carry out transaction

The Privatization Agency of Serbia announced today (March 25, 2009) that it had declared the tender for sale of 57.74% of capital of Bujanovac-based tobacco production and refining company DIB as unsuccessful.

The only bid on that tender was submitted by company "Philip Morris Participaticon", the Dutch branch of multinational company "Philip Morris".

According to the announcement, "Philip Morris Participations" informed the Agency that it was unable to carry out the transaction because it had not received the decision about unconditional and permanent approval of concentration from the Commission for Protection of Competition, which was one of the conditions on the tender.

The Agency issued the decision about conditional approval of concentration of market participants to that company.

Company "Philip Morris" in Serbia already owns Tobacco Industry Niš, which was privatized in 2003.

DIB has 53 workers, its annual capacity is 2,000 tons of tobacco foil, and it produced 685,605 tons in 2006.