May 10 (SeeNews) - Dubai-based P&O Ports has signed a 7.99 million euro ($8.97 million) deal to acquire Luka Novi Sad, the state-owned company operating Serbia's second largest port on the Danube river, the ministry of transport and infrastructure said on Friday.
The privatisation contract was signed by state secretary at the economy ministry Dragan Stevanovic and the executive director of P&O Ports, Rado Antolovic, the transport ministry said in a statement following the signing ceremony.
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Antolovic said that P&O Ports will invest some 30 million euro in the port of Novi Sad in order to improve the quality of its operations and link it with peers across Europe. The planned sum is twice the 15 million euro investment commitment in the privatisation agreement.
Stevanovic said the new owner will keep all of the company's employees and will increase the port's throughput to its full capacity of 2.5 million tonnes a year from 1.2 million tonnes at present.
Transport minister Zorana Mihajlovic, who was present at the signing ceremony, said that Serbia is investing more than 200 million in its river transport infrastructure, mainly in regulating the river beds of its largest rivers, Danube and Sava, as well as in modernisation of ports.
Luka Novi Sad is located in Serbia's northern autonomous province of Vojvodina. The port operates 10 indoor warehouses with a total area of 45,968 square metres.
($ = 0.890321 euro)