The auction of Romania's state-owned petrochemical company Oltchim was won by media mogul Dan Diaconescu, local media outlets reported Friday.
At Leu 203 million ($58.4 million; Eur45 million), Diaconescu's bid was double his initial offer and now also includes the backing of a foreign investor, according to reports. The foreign backer was not named.
The deadline for the auction had been set for September 17 but was pushed back to September 20 after Russian energy firm Gazprom requested an extension.
Gazprom did not ultimately submit an offer, however. The four previous bidders, Germany-registered Petro Carbo Chem SE, which already holds a 12.5% stake in the business and local companies Chimcomplex and Aisa Invest resubmitted their offers alongside Diaconescu.
Under the terms of the tender, the winner of Oltchim's majority stake will also have the option of acquiring the 70,000 b/d Arpechim oil refinery, which supplies most of Oltchim's raw materials.
Arpechim's owner OMV said last month it did not believe the refinery could ever be operated in an economically viable way and that it was open to returning the plant to the state for sale as part of the privatization process.
Romania's Prime Minister Victor Ponta said earlier this week that OMV had agreed to sell Arpechim to the winner of the Oltchim auction.
The decision to privatize the Romanian firm was finally approved in August and scheduled for after the completion of a Leu 1.13 billion debt-for-equity swap issued on September 10 this year.
That was agreed just days after the departure en masse of 17 high ranking managers, including the CEO.
The sale was subsequently held up by a European Commission investigation into a potential case of illegal state subsidies in the form of a Eur62 million loan guarantee. The European Commission cleared the matter in March 2012.
In Q1 2012, Oltchim posted losses of Leu 82.8 million (Eur19 million), compared with losses of Leu 2.6 million in Q1 2011. Overall in 2011 it posted losses of Leu 270 million on a turnover of Leu 1.53 billion.
According to the company's website, its assets include 300,000 mt/year of PVC capacity, 170,000 mt/year of chlor-alkali capacity, 52,000 mt/year of oxo-alcohols capacity, 25,000 mt/year of phthalic anhydride capacity and 120,000 mt/year of propylene oxide capacity.
