After the Council for Privatisation and Capital Projects of Montenegro decided on Monday to annul the tender for the sale of shares in the Port of Bar and the Montecargo companies, the OT Logistics, which was supposed to purchase the shares, responded. The Polish company announced that it was negatively surprised by the decision of Montenegrin authorities, adding that its representatives were not officially informed about that.
“OT Logistics finds the council’s intention to cancel the tender completely incomprehensible, given the current state of the development of tender procedure and successfully concluded negotiations with the tender commission,” the company stated.
It added that Montenegro’s competent institutions have not officially informed OTL on this decision.
“We are surprised by Montenegro’s Privatization Council’s decision, particularly given the full transparency of the privatisation process OTL participated in. The negotiations were successfully concluded in March this year and in the meantime we have not received any signals that would indicate the possibility of annulling the tender. We’re currently investigating this issue and we’ll notify the market on any new events after receiving the official explanation from Montenegrin institutions’ representatives,” OTL CEO Zbigniew Novik said.
The Polish company was the only bidder at the tender call and they offered about €8.5m for a 30% stake. During the negotiations, the purchase price was increased from €0.4169 to €0.50 cents per share, but OTL reduced its three year investments from the initial €17m to €14m. It was announced earlier that the company might purchase additional shares and become majority owner.
The Port of bar is majority state-owned (54.05%). The HLT and Trend investment funds own 2.51% and about 2% of the shares respectively. The MIG association for management services and property management has 1.18% of shares, whereas the Atlas Mont has a 1.06% stake.
