Romanian Avioane Craiova Sale To Restart By Oct 20 – AVAS

AVAS required an urgent update of the company’s evaluation, so that a new sale offer could be launched by October 20, AVAS said.

On Monday, Romania’s privatization agency announced that it broke off the negotiations with Czech company Aero Vodochody over the privatization of Avioane Craiova, and mentioned that it will restart the selling process in the next period.

The decision was made after the deadline for the Avioane Craiova sale offer expired, without Aero Vodochody accepting contractual clauses sent by the institution, AVAS officials said.

Aero Vodochody announced it is surprised by AVAS decision and said Tuesday in a press release that it would have liked a deadline extension of the sale offer.

“AVAS’s press release on Monday has surprised Aero representatives. Aero Vodochody was interested in extending the deadline of the sale offer, which was one of the AVAS’ options,” Czech company’s press release said.

“We wanted to continue the negotiations,” Aero’s president Igor Hulak said.

End-May, AVAS received three offers for the stake in Avioane Craiova from Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica, Czech AERO Vodochody and Bucharest-based INAV.

AERO Vodochody was selected because it had the best offer from the financial perspective, respectively EUR4.2 million for the shares, EUR3.3 million for the working capital and investments of EUR8.8 million in a 5-year period, out of which EUR4.5 million in the first one, AVAS said.