"Refusal to Register Transfer of Assets: Ahmed Dogan's Company Denied BGN 64 Million Acquisition"

Ahmed Dogan

The registration agency has refused to register the transfer of assets with a balance sheet value of BGN 64 million from the company “TPP Varna” to the company “Sigda”, in which the sole and majority owner is the honorary leader of the DPS Ahmed Dogan. This is clear from today’s refusal published on the agency’s website.

A reference in the Commercial Register shows that with a contract dated February 15 of this year TEC Varna has transferred to Sigda assets representing shares and shares of subsidiaries. It is about 50,000 registered, available shares of the company “Delta Epsilon”, 100 company shares with a nominal value of BGN 10 each from “Port Logistics Burgas” and “Otmanli Village”, 6,379,820 shares from the capital of “Pristanishte TEC Ezerovo” ” and 10,000 ordinary, available, registered shares worth BGN 100,000 from the capital of “Electric Securities”. The transfer was supposed to take effect from the moment of its entry in the Commercial Register, but for now it is clearly not going to happen.

According to

the motives of the official

decreed the refusal to register the transfer, when a check was made on the lot of the transforming company “TEC Varna”, it was found that there was a registered pledge of the commercial enterprise.

“According to the texts of the Law on special pledges for the transformation of the pledgor under the order of chapter sixteen of the Commercial Law, the consent of the pledge creditor is required, which is subject to registration. These conditions of the law have not been met,” the reasons for the refusal read.

In order to carry out the necessary actions to bring the transfer procedure in line with the requirements of the law, a notification dated May 11 of this year was sent to the two companies owned by Dogan. As the instructions were not fulfilled by the statutory deadline, the records officer issued a refusal. It can be appealed within 7 days.

For the transfer of

assets for BGN 64 million.

it became known to “Sigda” in the course of the case filed on the claim of “Bulgargaz” against “TPP Varna” for arrears in the amount of BGN 40 million.

On November 9 the state-owned company did not send its representative to the then-scheduled court hearing on the claim and it was postponed to February 17 of this year. But even then, the court’s work on the case did not start in substance, and the reason was again in “Bulgargaz”. This time, the company was asked to assign an additional task to the appointed forensic accounting expertise in order to “specify the exact amount of the liability”.

For this reason, the next hearing in the case was scheduled for April 21. So they came true

the suspicions

that due to delayed procedures on the part of the state gas transmission company, Ahmet Dogan, who is the majority owner of “TPP Varna”, will receive more than a year’s delay for possibly covering his obligations.

According to the protocol of the meeting of the Varna District Court on April 21, the case of the state-owned Bulgargaz against the Ahmed Dogan-owned TPP “Varna” for unpaid invoices for nearly BGN 40 million will end with a settlement. Thus, the saga with the unpaid invoices for natural gas delivered to the company of the honorary chairman of DPS will end, but at the moment it is not clear under what conditions.

Varna Thermal Power Plant was sold at the end of 2017 by the Czech state company CEZ to Sigda – a company of the family of the former transport minister from the Oresharsky cabinet, Danail Papazov. At the time, the deal was financed with a little over 24 million euro loan from First Investment Bank. Months later, in 2018, the honorary chairman of DPS Ahmed Dogan bought 70% of “Sigda” for about BGN 1.5 million, according to Papazov himself.