State interested in BIP's survival

The representatives of minor stockholders of Belgrade's Beer Industry (BIP) spoke yesterday (February 18, 2010) to the authorized in the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development about further destiny of that company after the termination of the sales contract with the consortium comprising Lithuanian Alite and Swedish United Nordic Beverages. According to the words of Miodrag Radovanović, the President of BIP's Trade Union, the authorized people in the Ministry agreed with the position of BIP's employees that the strategic partner must be found for BIP as soon as possible.

- We were told that the state was interested in BIP's survival. The first step will be the appointment of temporary representative of capital for the needs of further management of the company. That organ is also going to check if there were some malversations and irregularities in that company in the previous period. As soon as that is done, the new privatization process will be started. We have submitted the list of breweries and investment funds that do the business with beer and expressed interest in takeover of BIP to the representatives of the Ministry, but I can not reveal their names at the moment - Radovanović told Danas.

The President of the Novi Akcionar (New Stockholder) Association, Vojislav Ćorović, also says that the most important is that BIP finds good strategic partner and that the state is determined to enable the company to stay in the business.