Tsvetan Dimitrov, member of the managing board of the country’s largest fuel trader Petrol, comments in an interview for Dnevnik daily that three large foreign investors have expressed interest in taking over a stake in Petrol. He refuses to unveil names or any concrete plans for divestments but notes that the fuel trader is not ready for ownership changes yet due to ongoing restructuring and unbundling of non-core assets. The process of asset restructuring is expected to continue by the end of the year. The investment programme of the country’s largest fuel trader Petrol envisages expansion to the markets of Romania and Serbia . The company will also keep its focus on fuel trade in small settlements. The franchise arrangements of Petrol are expected to be more than 50 by the end of the year, thus making 100 fuel stations operational by other entities for the last two years. Petrol has started modernisations projects at 50 fuel stations and has franchised 17 of its 492 stations in Q1. Petrol controlled 19% of the local petroleum products retail market as of mid-2006. The fuel trader boosted net profit and sales by 62.2% and 17.2% to BGN 17.4mn (EUR 9mn) and BGN 655.6mn last year, respectively. Nevertheless, S&P has revised the outlook of Petrol’s B- rating to negative from stable due to the conflict with the main fuel supplier and retail distributor Lukoil Bulgaria .