January 3 (SeeNews) - Alpha Partners Bulgaria, a unit of Liechtenstein-registered Alpha Investments, has been cleared to acquire Bulgarian tobacco grower and cigarette producer KT International, the competition authority said.
The transaction, which was notified in November, will not lead to notable horizontal or vertical overlaps that could significantly curb competition or lead to a dominant position in relevant markets, notably the production and sale of cigarettes or the purchase of ethyl alcohol by competitors of the target company, the Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) said in a statement in late December.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
The value of the deal was not disclosed.
Plovdiv-based KT International's registered capital amounts to some 4.98 million levs ($2.8 million/2.5 million euro). The company has been hitherto owned by Sigma Consulting. The cigarette producer also owns a 1.999 MW grid-connected solar photovoltaic system for own use.
In 2022, KT International produced goods worth a total of 95 million levs, according to the CPC statement. It is the only tobacco products maker which sells its output on the Bulgarian market, with the remaining competitors exporting all of their production. KT International has held a 5-10% share in the Bulgarian cigarette distribution market between May 2021 and May 2023, preceded by four global tobacco producers.
Prior to the transaction, VP Brands International, part of the acquiring group of companies, acted as a supplier of ethyl alcohol to KT International, for use as a diluent in the cigarette manufacturing process. VP Brands, however, does not have a major market share in the production and wholesale of ethyl alcohol and the small quantities it sells to KT International will not have an effect on the supply side.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)