Two potential buyers for Chemical Industry "Župa"

Two interested companies have purchased the dossier for participation in the tender for sale of Kruševac-based Chemical Industry "Župa" - the company's CEO Miroljub Milojević announced today (August 3, 2009).

He told "Beta" agency that the tender commission had not revealed the names of the interested bidders who had decided to buy the dossier after three extensions of the deadline. Official bids for takeover of "Župa" should be submitted prior to August 17th.

The bidders must deal with production or processing of chemical products for minimum three last business years and they must have business incomes of minimum 8m EUR in 2007. The precondition for submission of official bid is the paid deposit or submitted auction guarantee worth 150,000 EUR.

- Chemical Industry "Župa" is currently out of work, the employees are on collective vacation, while the commencement of production depends on the success of this tender and the help from the state - said Milojević.

- We have sent the letter to the Ministry of Finance to ask for the subvention of 200m RSD for commencement of production, and we promised to return that money by the end of year 2010. We are assured that we will get these funds. Otherwise, we are not going to be able to resume the work - Milojević pointed out.

Chemical Industry "Župa" has 560 workers, and 80 of them have applied for the social programme. The final decision about that should be made by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy within the next few days.

This is the fourth tender for sale of 446,188 stocks, that is, 70.34% of capital of Kruševac-based chemical industry "Župa".

The first attempt of privatization, at the end of 2002, was declared as unsuccessful because the only bidder, company "Vektra M" owned by Violeta Josifova, did not submit the bid even after two extensions of the deadline.

However, "Vektra M" bought "Župa" on the second tender in 2003 for 3.8m EUR, with the promised investments amounting to 6.2m EUR. After the sales contract was cancelled at the end of year 2005, the Share Fund started running the company.

The third tender, which was announced in mid-2008, was declared unsuccessful because, although two buyers bought the documentation, no bid had been submitted prior to the deadline.