A Bulgarian court on Wednesday declared debt-ridden steel maker Kremikovtzi insolvent and opened a bankruptcy procedure against the company.

Since the ruling names December 31, 2005 as the date of insolvency, the claims of the holders of bonds secured with assets of the steel maker that were issued after said date may have to take a back-seat to those of other creditors.

The Kremikovtzi bond was collaterised with key assets like the plant's blast furnaces, the coke production line and the continuous casting line.

The ruling also means that all members of the company's governing bodies incur criminal liability for failing to file for insolvency.

Experts said the plant will most likely not be shuttered. A closure/no closure decision will be taken at a creditors' meeting scheduled for September 24.

The Bulgarian government, one of Kremikovtzi biggest creditors, has repeatedly stated that the plant should not be shut down. Neither is plant closure on the minds of the two biggest candidate buyers: India's Arcelor Mittal and Vorskla Steel, owned by Ukrainian billionaire Konstantin Zhevago. Both companies would like to acquire the plant through an auction procedure.

As an interim solution, the two candidates have each proposed to run Kremikovtzi until the actual ownership changeover.

To this end, Arcelor Mittal and Vorskla Steel have each signed tolling agreements with Kremikovtzi.

Bozhko Bonev, corporate secretary of the Bulgarian steel maker, said the court-appointed receiver will now decide which of the two tolling agreements should be honored.

A member of the bondholders committee told Dnevnik he will sue the Bulgarian government if the bond collateral turns out to be worthless. He said he had a case because the government approved the use of company assets as collateral and then took advantage of the funds raised by the bond issue.

It was the Bulgarian government, a 25% shareholder in Kremikovtzi, that enabled the bond after the majority owner, Indian businessman Pramod Mittal, was barred from exercising his voting rights due to a conflict of interests.

After Mittal, the government was the second biggest beneficiary of the bond proceeds as the steel maker was able to settle outstanding bills to state-owned companies like the National Social Security Institute, power utility NEK, gas distributor Bulgargaz and railway carrier BDZ.(Dnevnik)

Bulgaria's anti-trust regulator said it has approved the take-over of Insight Com, a Sofia-based Internet and cable TV provider, by cable operator Eurocom Cable MB.

The deal price was not disclosed.

The Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC) said its research indicated that Insight Com has only a token share of the Sofia market.

Insight Com operates in Sofia's Nadezhda residential district.

Eurocom board director Petyo Staikov declined to say the net additions that the deal would make to the Eurocom subscriber base.

Insight Com is the latest asset targeted for acquisition by Eurocom in 2008.

In January, Eurocom won regulatory approval to buy satellite TV provider ITV Partners but the deal was never finalised.

The cable operator later bought the networks of five regional peers in Gabrovo, Pazardjik and Kyustendil and two in Plovdiv.

The biggest deal in the making, a merger with rival CableTEL, is pending regulatory approval.

In July, the CPC said it was launching an anti-trust probe because the data is had at its disposal suggested the deal could create a monopoly on the paid TV segment.

(Dnevnik)

The nation's top three consumer lenders accounted for 63.5% of the sector's consumer loan portfolio by the end of June, shows data of the Bulgarian central bank.

Their showing on the corporate segment is less dominant with a 37% of total loans.

Corporate lending growth continues to outpace retail lending in the first half of 2008, building on a trend that started in 2007 when the corporate segment showed more growth momentum than the household segment for the first time in five years.

Increased competition has had little effect on the market positions of Bulgaria's top 10 consumer and corporate lenders in Q2.

Almost all banks in the top 10 on either segment posted double-digit growth in their credit portfolios in Q2.

UniCredit Bulbank, the top corporate lender with a portfolio of 4.4 bln levs, recorded a 17% growth in Q2. That growth margin was almost matched by Alpha Bank's 16%. Raiffeisenbank and Piraeus Bank posted a 13% rise in corporate loans.

The Q2 growth rates in the top 10 of consumer lenders were similar.

The top performer is Raiffeisenbank with a 30% rise on end-March to 497 mln levs in consumer loans.

Economic and Investment Bank also did well on the retail segment, posting a 17.5% growth to 191.3 mln levs.

Portfolio growth at Post Bank and Piraeus Bank also breached the 16% mark in Q2.(Dnevnik)

Bulgarian water bottling companies Devin and Bankia are advocating changes to the local regulations that would allow them to increase the volumes they are permitted to bottle under their current concession arrangements.

The two companies have dismissed as untrue claims made by rival water bottler Gorna Bania that they are overbottling in breach of the discharge limit set in the respective concession.

Gorna Bania has also asked for the concessions of the two companies to be revoked.

A protest letter to the effect was Tuesday sent to the prime minister, accusing Bankia and Devin in unfair competition.

'We were forced to seek the assistance of the prime minister after failing in the past two years to provoke any reaction to our claims from the ministries of environment and economy,' said Evgeni Goranov, manager and owner of the Gorna Bania company.

The ministries of environment and of economy confirmed the receipt of the Gorna Bania letter and said they will conduct the appropriate investigation but did not specify when it will be completed.

Goranov said the lack of any reaction on the part of the environment ministry is due to the patronage that the two companies enjoy 'in the higher echelons of power.'

Devin and Bankia said they had been waiting since 2005 for the ministry to increase the annual discharge they are allowed to bottle under their concession contracts.

The two companies argue that the relevant legislation should be updated to allow for the utilisation of 100% of the discharge.

A new law on concessions took effect on August 3, making no changes to the concession regulations enforced so far.(Dnevnik)