In Serbia there are attractive companies for sale. They are in the list of Privatization Agency but also at the Belgrade Stock Exchange. The list is long, unfortunately much longer than number of potential investors. The crisis has left its mark.
Until so far Serbia has cashed EUR 2.3 billions from sale of 1,643 enterprises. It is not known how much more it could get from further sales, but among 650 companies in the list of Privatization Agency there are still attractive firms.
Buyer’s profile
Vladislav Cvetkovic, Director of Privatization Agency says for ‘Blic’ in reply to our question over the profile of today’s potential buyer:
‘These are people who really have idea about what they shall do and they are from production sphere. There are no more investors with speculative orientation who would buy for further sale. There are many Italian investors interested in textile industry and other industrial branches. There are even domestic ones who think that spreading of business dealing can be effected using some industrial capacities not in production now’.
Inquiry
‘Of course, showing interest still does not mean that purchase, i.e. sale is going to be realized. The example is ‘Telecom’ when agreement over the price was not reached. Investors permanently collect information about companies for sale and their price’, economist Vladimir Gligorov says for ‘Blic’.
For foreign investors addressing SIEPA the most interesting fields for investing are food processing, car, electronics and textile industry.
Favorable position
‘Every investor knows what concretely he/she wants to do. Investors do not have prejudices, they are led by their interest. There are several reasons why they are interested in Serbia. In the first place it is more competitive labor price in relation to countries of the Central Europe as well as more favorable tax rates. Geographic position is another advantage and also agreement on free trade’, Milos Curcin of the Agency for Foreign Investing and Promotion of Export of Serbia (SIEPA) says.
The most valuable company at Belgrade Stock Exchange is the ‘NIS’.
State property
The State also has a major stake (83 percent) of the Belgrade ‘Nikola Tesla’ Airport . The value of it at the stock is presently about EUR 140 millions. The State, too is, in control of the biggest domestic bank ‘Komercijalna Banka’ (42.6 percent stake) and its current value of about EUR 70 millions.
Source blic.rs
