VIVACOM ACQUIRED BY BULGARIAN BUSINESSMAN SPAS ROUSSEV

Bulgarian businessman, Spas Roussev, is the new owner of Bulgaria’s largest telecoms operator Vivacom. The firm was sold at an auction in London for the price of 330 million euros. The auction went on for 16 hours and finished at 4 a.m. on 20th of November.

Another bidder was Greek Olympia Group controlled by the Greek entrepreneur Panos Germanos.

VTB Capital, the investment banking arm of Russia's second-largest bank, VTB, launched the sale process. Its CEO is Bulgaria’s former finance minister Milen Velchev. The reason for the sale was unserviced debt of a telecom’s owner to the Russian bank.

Until recently, the shareholders in the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company were Tsevtan Vassilev with 43.33% stake, the Russian VTB with 33.33% and a group of creditors of the telecoms, led by Michael Tennenbaum, with the remaining 23.34%.