Bulgaria Voids Real Estate Deal

Bulgaria’s cabinet decided Wednesday to cross off deals for a partnership with media tycoon Irena Krasteva that involved several top real estate projects owned by the National Revenue Agency.

In 2008, the Stanishev Cabinet voted in favor of turning four buildings. some of which are still under construction, from public state property into public private property, thus setting up a joint stock company with “IPK Rodina” (“Rodina Publishing House”), owned by Irena Krasteva, through the apportionment of the real estate, in which the state held a minority share, Novinite reports.

With Wednesday’s decision, the Borisov government cancelled the deal and restored public state property status to the four premises. Under Bulgarian law, public state property cannot be sold but public private property can be involved in a variety of regular transactions.

The deal between the Stanishev government and Irena Krasteva stipulated that her company would keep the downtown properties in exchange for the full completion of another building with an all-out built-up area of 50 000 square meters.

By the end of July 2009 the “United Bulgarian Newspapers” company, the firm representing Irena Krasteva for the NRA real estate deal, decided it did not want to participate in the project any longer. Thus, there was no reason for the Borisov government to maintain the public private status of the properties in question, the government press service said.