“The deadline has been moved to 12:00 pm Thursday, September 20,” said Remus Vulpescu, head of the ministry’s privatization office OPSPI.
The initial deadline was set for noon today, but the ministry decided to extend the procedures to partly accommodate a request made by representatives of Russian giant Gazprom, which recommended the auction be put off by two weeks.
“We’ve managed a slight delay, but another one would be impossible considering that Romania must notify the International Monetary Fund on its progress by September 22,” Vulpescu said.
Oltchim’s privatization is prerequisite for the disbursement of further installments of a EUR3.6 billion loan agreement signed with the IMF.
The company is majority owned by the Economy Ministry, with a 54.8% stake, while Germany’s PCC SE holds an 18.32% stake.
So far, the ministry received three offers for Oltchim, from PCC SE and local businessmen Dan Diaconescu and Stefan Vuza.
Earlier Monday, Vulpescu said that companies representing Gazprom asked for a two-week delay to file an offer for Oltchim, saying it needed the time to analyze the potential impact caused by recent litigations regarding the chemical company after one of the rival bidders requested that privatization procedures be modified.
Under the current privatization strategy, Oltchim’s potential buyer would also have to take over total receivables of 1.8 billion lei (EUR401 million) held by the state. The chemical company has total debts worth over RON2.5 billion.