The Bulgarian government is mooting propping investment projects by direct subsidies as a buffer against an expected outflow of foreign capital in the aftermath of the financial crisis, said Stoyan Stalev, chairman of the local investment promotion authority.

Under EU regulation, the aid cannot exceed 50% of the project’s cost and ranges from 10 to 30% within the bloc.

Now the state can spend BGN 15 million on infrastructure development and training for large-scale projects.

The figure will zoom to BGN 50 million for 2009, and investors may seek further help under EU funds backing innovative projects.

InvestBulgaria Agency will also propose a lower floor for fast-track administrative support of BGN 10 million as the current level of BGN 20 million cannot encourage investors.

The threshold for information technologies should be dropped to BGN 4-5 million from BGN 7 million at present, according to the agency.

Bulgaria’s foreign direct investments slumped by nearly EUR 1.2 billion in January to August 2008 from the same period last year, and their share of GDP shrank to 8.8% from 14.4% a year before, under official statistics.

(Dnevnik)

The shareholders of Toplivo, the Bulgarian distributor of construction materials, will vote at a December 6 meeting on shifting sluggish propane butane and liquid fuels operations to another company of majority owner Synergon Holding.

The shake-up will fetch Toplivo nearly BGN 30 million. The assets’ market value is BGN 2.5 million higher than their balance sheet value.

The money will prop up Toplivo’s profitable operations of building materials and solid fuels distribution.

Expenses on the company’s gas and liquid fuel business have been outpacing revenues in the past years.

Fuel trade triggered Toplivo a BGN 1.78 million loss in the nine months through September 2009 although generating over half of profit three years ago, under corporate data.

Toplivo hopes streamlining operations will boost its share price and shore up confidence of foreign and local investors.

The company will dispose of some 13 percent of its total assets to buy and renovate warehouses and purchase shops in strategic locations.

(Dnevnik)

The nervous global markets dragged Bulgarian stock indices to their first fall for the week with the blue-chip SOFIX dropping over 5% to 600 points.

Dnevnik 20 of the biggest and most liquid companies was down almost 4% to 82.59 points.

The broader BG40 and the property fund BGREIT fell over 2%.

Trade turnover came in at BGN 3 million.

The world’s stock markets opened lower on new fears of an economic slowdown. Banks spearheaded the retreat backed by extraction companies succumbing to falling oil prices.

First Investment Bank was the only lender to move forward though its shares only edged up less than 1%.

Bulgarian American Credit Bank lost 3.67% of its market value.

All other blue chips closed in the negative, and some of them suffered painful losses.

Central Cooperative Bank and Corporate Commercial Bank were down 1.8% and 0.85%, respectively.

Local road construction conglomerate Holding Patishta tumbled 10% to BGN 12.8 a day after asking permission to list new shares.

Drug maker Sopharma sank 8% to BGN 2.16. Shares of industrial conglomerate Chimimport dipped below issue price to BGN 3.86.

Real estate investment trusts enjoyed the best liquidity in the session.

(Dnevnik)

The Bulgarian holiday property market is saturated and big projects find no buyers because they are unprofitable, said Dobromir Ganev, managing director of Foros real estate agency.

The tight credit has not dampened demand for homes but caused buyers to put up with size, floor, exposure and location of the property.

Buyers are moving to more peripheral areas where prices are lower.

Farmland prices have gone through the roof with some selling for BGN 2,000 a decare. The frozen EU funding will keep prices at their current levels.

Local company Terra Trans Consult has suspended a EUR 200 million holiday village project in Balchik due to the severe economic conditions, said the coastal town’s mayor, Nikolai Angelov. The company’s Balchik Paradise complex was to deliver houses, a hotel, a spa centre, a conference hall and a cinema hall.

Tsonko Tsonev, the mayor of neighbouring Kavarna, said investors are neither selling nor freezing.

(Dnevnik)

Four Bulgarian banks put up the interest rates on their sweetest lev-denominated mortgage loans in September, showed data of the moitepari.bg site which compares the loan and otherwise programs of different lenders.

Thus the Moite Pari BGN index, which presents the average annual percentage rates of 20-year mortgages, picked up 5 basis points reaching 9.61%, the highest since its rollout in end-2005.

Five of the fifteen leading local-currency mortgage lenders tracked by the index have revised their mortgage loan terms. Only Municipal Bank cut by 2.0 basis points the price of its most popular mortgage loan after the central bank lowered its benchmark rate, the website said.

The price of Allianz Bank Bulgaria’s loan jumped by 0.76% as the interest rate grew nearly as much.

Raiffeisenbank added 30 basis points to the rate of its best mortgage offer, and the new service fee brought the total to 0.38%.

The SOFIBOR index rising 0.15% in September drove by 0.13% the price of ProCredit Bank’s juicier mortgage.

UniCredit Bulbank performed a milder increase adding 8 basis points and halving application fee. Thus its loan price rose 7 basis points.

The Moite Pari EUR index jumped almost twice faster than its local-currency counterpart due to price hikes by EIBank, Allianz Bank Bulgaria, UniCredit Bulbank, Raiffeisenbank and ProCredit Bank.

(Dnevnik)

Bulgarian brown and white goods chain Technomarket set foot in Slovenia in line with its massive expansion in the Balkans started two years ago.

The chain’s owner, K&K Electronics, will move in stores of local retailer Tus, Slovenian news agency STA reported.

The company said it has rented space to open several bog-box shops on the market.

Technomarket closest rival in Slovenia will be domestically-owned chain Merkur, the current market best.

K&K Electronics grew the Technomarket brand from scratch and last year acquired Romanian retailer Domo. The new Technomarket Domo company runs stores also in Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia and Montenegro. It has more than 30 outlets in Bulgaria and generates some half of the market’s sales.

Technomarket Domo’s main shareholder, investment fund Equest Investment Balkans, put off plans to list the chain in Sofia or Bucharest when the financial crisis broke.

(Dnevnik)