An inter-ministerial commission comprising representatives of the Agriculture Ministry, Finance Ministry and Justice Ministry is currently looking for a way to privatise the National Tobacco Company Tutunul Romanesc (SNTR), with the Government set to approve the best option, Agriculture minister Ilie Sarbu told Ziarul Financiar.
The commission is to consider several privatisation options: InterAgro could take over an 87% stake in SNTR, after swapping the Agriculture Ministry's debts and penalties to InterAgro into shares; InterAgro could take over the entire stake in the National Tobacco Company SNTR; the National Tobacco Company SNTR could be partially sold, but production would be kept in the state's patrimony.
"The Commission is to decide on this issue by Friday, while the solutions will be assessed by the Government during the next week's session," Sarbu said.
The Executive on Tuesday put off making a decision regarding the structure of the National Tobacco Company SNTR shareholding and the manner to privatise the company.
The Agriculture Ministry has recently ordered an assessment of the National Tobacco Company SNTR patrimony in order to settle the shareholding structure and then launch privatisation. InterAgro in 2000 made a down payment of 10 million dollars for taking over the National Tobacco Company SNTR.
Following the assessment of the National Tobacco Company SNTR, drafted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and by swapping the 10 million dollars into shares, InterAgro might hold a 52% stake in the company.
The National Tobacco Company SNTR privatisation contract was signed last May with InterAgro, following a tender organised by the Agriculture Ministry.
Bucharest Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Greek company Leaf Tobacco A Michailides, which had contested the privatisation, and rejected the appeals filed by InterAgro and the Agriculture Ministry. The court decided that privatisation should be resumed.
The National Tobacco Company SNTR over the first 10 months of this year registered 2,217 billion ROL in turnover, half of the amount estimated by the company's management for the entire year.
The Government in February this year approved the rescheduling of the company's 2,370 billion ROL debts, with 841.9 billion ROL of this amount standing for overdue debt penalties.
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