The local management of Dalkia International unveils that the company is interested in acquiring a 20% stake in Sofia ’s heating and power generation utility. The city council of Sofia has confirmed a few weeks ago that three foreign entities – Dalkia, Czech Electricity Company (CEZ) and BNP Paribas – have sent swap offers. However, the heating utility has not launched such tender and expects a broader privatisation programme for the main equity stake. Dalkia comments that it wants to acquire the 20% stake on the back of an expert assessment on the market value of the Sofia-based energy company and will also take part in the planned sell-out of the majority stake. Dalkia International has acquired the full stake in the heating utility in the country's third largest city of Varna in the beginning of this year at the price of EUR 6.78mn and is planning to invest more than EUR 10mn in the next five years. The French company will direct its investments to reducing heat losses in the distribution network to about 11% from 30-35% at present and will explore options for using biomass fuels. The gas-powered heating utility in Varna services around 13,000 households and 400 institutional customers. It has a pipeline network of 32 kilometres and two co-generation units with heat production capacity of 2.4MW and electricity production capacity of 2.18MW each.