Loans from BDB. The government’s selective revelations

After Minister Kiril Petkov complained last week that the Bulgarian Development Bank did not give access to credit records, the situation is moving towards a change. Today on the show “This Sunday” on bTV

, the nominee for a member of the Supervisory Board of the Bulgarian Development Bank Valentin Mihov said that two of the companies in the top 8 of the bank’s large clients have received loans to refinance loans already granted at more favorable interest rates. from other commercial banks. Later, Minister Petkov clarified that it was Technomarket and Transpect.

In fact, this data is public. A check with the help of the BRRD search engine and the public data in the Commercial Register shows the information about the
MARKET INVESTMENT JSC
(technomarket), associated with former MP Delyan Peevski. In September 2019, it was registered pledge

of a commercial enterprise against a loan of EUR 51 130 000 (over BGN 100 million) with interest “not less than 2% /two/ percent per year” from the Bulgarian Development Bank.

A few months later, in January 2020, TECHNOMARKET BULGARIA EAD

paid a loan of EUR 44 000 000 (over BGN 86 million) to First Investment Bank (FIB), for which there was a registered pledge

of a commercial enterprise and which had an interest rate of “not less than 7% (seven percent) per year“.

This refinancing, in addition to raising doubts about extremely favorable conditions from the state-owned BDB to one company, may also mean covert support to the other private bank FIB, in which the State through BDB acquired a stake and the CPC allowed the purchase to become above the market price

.

Similarly, information on two loans of “Transpect” from BDB with 4% interest rate is found in the Commercial Register. However, it is unclear which bank previously financed Transpect, linked to the owners of Union Ivkoni, who are believed to be close to power.

BRRD processed over 6000 entries from the Property Register under the account of the Bulgarian Development Bank and published a list of over 700 companies with which BDB has established pledges on properties against granted loans.

Both Technomarket and Transpect are found in this list.

What about credits without bets?

However, there are other large exposures of BDB, for which there is absolutely no public data on pledged assets.

Such is the loan of over BGN 115 million from BDB to the company “International Investments” EAD – another company associated with the circle of Delyan Peevski. BDB has not requested a pledge of the commercial enterprise, according to data from the Commercial Register, but has not requested any collateral in property.

According to Capital, this loan was used for the acquisition of the Miragio Hotel in Halkidiki. A study of BRRD found that this happened together with another company with a loan from BDB – “Ultrastroy”. Ultrastroy has a connection to Yordan Tsonev, who is Peevski’s main spokesman in the media.

For now, it is not clear why the caretaker minister prefers to focus on companies whose loans have public information, nor when data on loans will be presented, for which there is no official data on collateral and therefore there is a much more serious risk for the bank and taxpayers’ money.

And properties for those in power

In addition to the loans, BDB has also sold properties to those in power. This becomes clear after the processing of the bank’s entries in the Commercial Register.

In the not so distant 2011 the District Prosecutor of Balchik Krasimir Dimitrov acquired from the bank a house with a yard in the resort town.

He pays 130,000 leva. for 160 sq. Total built-up area or nearly 400 euros per sq.m., which is profitable for such a location. According to Dimitrov’s property declaration, the property was acquired with a loan withdrawn by his wife Ivelina.

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