DEADLINE EXTENDED BY THREE DAYS The privatization of Oltchim part two, on Thursday

• UPDATE 3: Victor Ponta announces that the privatization terms will not be changed

Victor Ponta said that the privatization of Oltchim will not be postponed and that the schedule will be complied with: the bids will be submitted on Thursday, and the open auction will be held on Friday, as announced yesterday by the OPSPI.

"Of the offers we have received, one is truly < < exotic > >, and another we need to review very carefully. We need to see whether these bids have a financial potential. Chimcomplex is a rather small company compared to Oltchim. Regardless of the final outcome, we will not accept any bid which involves the loss of jobs and the dismantling of Oltchim. The situation is very difficult", the prime minister said.

According to the prime minister if none of the bids is satisfactory, the company will be placed under receivership, but only "in the short term".

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• UPDATE 2: Ponta is talking to Chiţoiu about the privatization of "Oltchim"

Prime Minister Victor Ponta will meet the minister of the Economy this morning to talk about the privatization of "Oltchim" and the postponement of the call for bids by three days, press sources announce.

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• UPDATE: The stock of Oltchim opens in the red

The Bucharest Stock Exchange has unlocked trading in the stock of Oltchim and price is down 5.67%.

• Sensational: Dan Diaconescu wants to have the very privatization he wants to win cancelled!

• PCC SE, AISA, Chimcomplex and Dan Diaconescu have submitted firm bids

• Gazprom and Pegamont have asked for delays

• Pegamont has offered to fund the plant's return to operational, in exchange for the delay

The lawsuits filed by journalist Dan Diaconescu against the privatization of Oltchim have caused the Office For The State's Interests and Industrial Privatization (OPSPI) to postpone by three days, until September 20th, the deadlines for filing the participation documents and for the opening of the bids. The actual call for tenders, which was scheduled to be held today, will be organized on September 21st instead.

The decision was made by the OPSPI after consulting with the investors who submitted bids in the call for tenders for the sale of Oltchim, namely with PCC SE, Dan Diaconescu - the president of the PP-DD political party and the owner of TV station OTV, Aisa Invest and Chimcomplex Borzeşti (the latter two controlled by businessman Ştefan Vuza). The OPSPI has presented investors with the status of all the lawsuits filed against Oltchim and has asked them to inform whether there postponing the call for tenders is necessary or not.

• Four firm bids

Yesterday was the deadline for the submission of bids and the best word to describe it would be that it was a true show revolving around the statements of Dan Diaconescu.

In his trademark style, he arrived at the Ministry of the Economy just four minutes before the deadline for submitting the bids (12:00 hours) and he submitted his bid just one minute before the deadline (ed. note: that must have been quite a dash, seeing how the Ministry has a big building and slow elevators).

On the other hand, Ştefan Vuza has submitted his bids in the morning, two hours before the deadline. He was calm and had the time to walk around the ministry's building. On the other hand, Wojciech Zaremba, the representative of PCC in Romania, nervously paced in front of the ministry for about an hour and he only relaxed when his lawyers arrived. PCC submitted the bid at 11:45.

• The lawsuits of Dan Diaconescu

In a recent interview for BURSA, Dan Diaconescu announced that he would challenge everything that pertains to the privatization of Oltchim. Which he did.

On September 13th, at the Court of Vâlcea, Dan Diaconescu filed a lawsuit requesting the annulment of decision of the General Shareholder Meeting of Oltchim concerning the receivable of the AVAS. Dan Diaconescu also filed with the Court of Bucharest a request for an ordinance of the president of the court to suspend the privatization procedure and a lawsuit requesting the annulment of the privatization procedure and of the privatization contract which is set to be concluded.

Dan Diaconescu made the following statements yesterday: "I am in favor of the privatization of Oltchim, I want this plant to be sold in a transparent manner, under the best terms for the state, at a price as high as possible. The receivable of the AVAS should not have included the accrued penalties, that is against the law. Moreover, the share capital of Oltchim should have been increased with the receivable of the AVAS. In the end, the state did not do that.

I have filed these lawsuits and I want for the privatization to be postponed because the delay for submitting the bids was too short, because the OPSPI must sell the receivables of the AVAS and Electrica together with the plant, rather than separately. Under the current circumstances, the future owner of the plant may find itself in a situation where these receivables would be bought by third parties, which would then be able to request the insolvency of Oltchim. Another reason why we filed the lawsuits is because the agreement with IMF stipulates that Oltchim must be sold together with Arpechim. Who guarantees that we can buy Arpechim and at what price? Oltchim can not function without the Arpechim refinery. The state must make the commitment that it can sell to the future owner the Arpechim refinery as well, which is now owned by OMV Petrom".

The TV station owner expressed his content at the three-day extension to the deadline eventually granted by the OPSPI. He said that this would allow interested investors to review these legal issues and he said he hopes that the OPSPI would go back on the privatization method.

When asked about the meaning of his court request about the cancellation of the privatization and of the privatization contract, since he is willing to make an "exceptionally" big bid for Oltchim, Dan Diaconescu said that he would respond to any method to prevent the sale of the plant for a pittance: "Oltchim is worth over 2 billion Euros. Or, the minimum bid asked by the OPSPI is 4 million Euros, and the auction can also be a Dutch one, where the price falls with each round, rather than increase. Nobody believed that I have the money and that I want to buy Oltchim on behalf of the Romanian people. Here I am doing this and I have an offer that can't be refused".

Ştefan Vuza did not oppose the brief postponement of the privatization delays, but he said that he didn't need this delay because he accepts the risks deriving from the lawsuits. He did not vote for the postponement of the call for tenders.

On the other hand, PCC opposed the postponement of the privatization, emphasizing the fact that the situation of Oltchim is very difficult and that the privatization was delayed for several years, and a new delay can only harm the plant. Wojciech Zaremba, the representative of PCC Romania, said: "The three day delay does not solve the legal issues concerning the plant, all of these new lawsuits only do harm. The privatization is a solution to help Oltchim recover. Oltchim needs a serious restructuring. The bid made by PCC does not include the Arpechim refinery. Oltchim does not need the refinery to work well. The raw materials can be bought from the market. I will not challenge in court the postponement of the privatization. Oltchim has enough lawsuits on its hands".

The OPSPI made the decision to postpone the call for bids given the economic circumstances and the interest expressed by the potential buyers, as well as considering other conditions which could negatively influence the outcome of a privatization process.

The participation documents remain valid. The buyers of the presentation file and/or of the tender books have the right to withdraw the documents filed by yesterday, to add more documents and/or to continue filing documents by the new deadline. The other elements of the privatization procedure remain unchanged.

Remus Vulpescu, the head of the OPSPI, said that, after multiple postponements, the government has reached a point where the deadlines can no longer be postponed, cancelled or tergiversated. Given the fact that the initially announced deadline of September 18th was intended to allow the Romanian authorities the international partners on the outcome of the auction and that there is a deadline for doing so, a brief postponement is possible, he concluded.