site.bta Delyan Peevski Divests His Shareholding in Bulgartabac

Delyan Peevski Divests His Shareholding in Bulgartabac

Sofia, February 19 (BTA) - Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) MP Delyan Peevski Friday announced that he is divesting his shareholding in Bulgartabac.

"Increasingly frequent attempts have been made in the media in recent weeks to deliberately discredit Bulgartabac by using my name to make false insinuations related to the operation of the company," the statement reads. "Such moves are intended to tendentiously implicate Bulgartabac in political machinations by my opponents, which I categorically cannot tolerate. Nor can I allow the negative campaign to affect more than one hundred thousand tobacco growers whose livelihood largely depends on Bulgartabac's operation," Peevski points out.

"Considering this, I declare that I am divesting my shareholding in Bulgartabac, with the shareholder company whose majority owner I am selling is participating interest."

"Bulgartabac is of substantial importance both for the national economy and for tobacco growers in this country, which is why the company must be safeguarded against all kinds of encroachments and ill-intentioned actions," the statement says.

In August 2015, Peevski and his mother Irena Krusteva acquired a 5 per cent interest in Bulgartabac through the NCN Investment company, in which he holds 90 per cent and Krusteva 10 per cent. According to the business community, however, it is precisely Peevski who has been controlling Bulgartabac since falling out with failed Corpbank owner Tsvetan Vassilev in early 2014.

A week ago it emerged that Turkey had barred Peevski and MRF Honorary Chairman Ahmed Dogan from entering its territory. The news was broken by the Turkish newspaper "Star", which described Peevski as "the emperor of contraband cigarettes" and close to Russian oligarchs.

According to reports in the Turkish press, Bulgartabac-made brands are among the most popular contraband cigarettes in that country. The Bulgarian "Capital" weekly cited the Turkish General Directorate of Security as saying that Bulgartabac brands account for some 50 per cent of the contraband cigarettes in Turkey, and this market share is estimated at 500 million euro annually. Bulgartabac has denied the allegations, saying that it does not carry out export transactions with Turkish companies and does not sell cigarettes in that market.

Earlier on Friday, Radan Kanev MP of the Reformist Bloc asked that the Government be assigned to request all information available to the partner services in the EU and NATO, including in Turkey, on whether Dogan and Peevski have a "Russian connection" and whether their participating interest in Bulgartabac is used to carry out contraband operations. Kanev wants this information to be reported to the ad hoc committee of inquiry into possible interference by Turkey and Russia in Bulgaria's internal affairs, which Parliament formed on Friday.