The finance ministry has asked the state privatisation agency to prepare and organise the sale of the state stakes in the country’s stock exchange BSE and the central depository institution. The privatisation procedure, aiming to boost the effectiveness of the Bulgarian capital market, comprises the sale of the state interest in BSE (50.05%) and the central depository (43.7%, additional 6.6% are controlled by BSE) as a package to a strategic investor.

Only big international institutions and companies will be entitled to be consultants, who will have to assess both institutions, to prepare the sale strategy, the criteria for selecting candidates, the price proposals, information memoranda, etc. The bidders should not be state-controlled and should hold trade platform licenses.

In order to be selected, the consultant must meet two criteria: he should have been among the top 15 consultants on mergers and acquisitions between 2005 and 2010 in the merger market website for Central and Eastern Europe, (Russia and the former Soviet republics excluded). Therefore, the prospective consultant should have taken part in at least 10 deals for EUR 5 billion in the least over that period. Data from the website reveal that the only prospective consultants that meet those criteria are very big investment banks and consultant companies such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan. Meanwhile, the list of prospective candidates includes seven financial institutions that have branches in Bulgaria. These are: UniCredit Group, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Raiffeisen Investment, and Societe Generale. However, being on the list does not provide these banks with an automatic advantages.