The offers for the Trogir-based Brodotrogir were submitted by the companies More Trogir and Jadranska Ulaganja.

The offer for the Rijeka-based 3. Maj was submitted by Crown Investment on behalf of the Austrian company A-tec, while the DIV company from Samobor submitted the offer for the Split-based BIS.

There were no offers for the Pula-based Uljanik, the Kraljevica-based Brodogradiliste Kraljevica and the Split-based Brodosplit - Brodogradiliste Specijalnih Objekata.

The commission opening the offers did not assess their validity today, this will be done by HFP expert services, after which the offers will be sent to the Economy Ministry, which will analyse them together with the shipyards' management boards and representatives of unions and the HFP, said commission chair and HFP president Vedran Duvnjak.

The Market Competition Protection Agency and the European Commission will analyse the proposed restructuring programmes separately, he added.

All these procedures are expected to take one month and the final decision on the privatisation will be made by the government at the proposal of the Economy Ministry, said Duvnjak.

Ozren Matijasevic, a member of the HFP Steering Board and president of the Croatian Association of Trade Unions, said he was pleased that offers were submitted for three shipyards, adding the management boards of the other three were drafting sustainable operation plans.

He voiced hope that the European Commission would approve the restructuring of those three shipyards as well, adding that bankruptcy was not viable in the current economic situation.

Rudjer Friganovic, a state secretary at the Economy Ministry, said the shipyards for which no tenders were submitted must offer good sustainable operation programmes, adding that Uljanik was not problematic.

"The programme we assess as good will constitute plan B for those shipyards. Today we can't say which shipyards will survive," he said, adding one option was merging and that bankruptcy should be avoided.

All tenders offer one kuna for the stakes offered, with the exception of DIV, which offered HRK 3.7 million.

The More Trogir company offered a five-year restructuring plan for Brodotrogir with a plan to settle liabilities towards banks covered by state guarantees.

Jadranska Ulaganja also offered a restructuring plan, but did not accept any liability not covered by state guarantees.

In its offer for 3. Maj, Crown Investments offered a three-year restructuring plan, the settling of debts covered by state guarantees, and an agreement with the state on the exclusion of part of the shipyard's real estate for the compensation of previous debts.

In its offer for BIS, DIV proposed that the government settle the shipyard's debt in the amount of HRK 2.48 billion.

Fifteen tenderers bought the tender documentation -- three for 3. Maj, two for BIS, four for Brodotrogir, two for Brodogradiliste Kraljevica, three for Brodosplit - Brodogradiliste Specijalnih Objekata and one for Uljanik.

In the second privatisation round, the state sold for one kuna, under special conditions, majority stakes in 3. Maj, Brodotrogir, Brodogradiliste Kraljevica and BIS.

Stakes in two shipyards were on sale at a nominal price -- one stake, comprising 100 per cent of the share capital, in Brodosplit - Brodogradiliste Specijalnih Objekata at the initial price of HRK 18.16 million, and a 59.25 per cent stake in Uljanik at the initial price of HRK 397.49 million.

Union leaders said they were satisfied with the four offers, adding they expected the government to continue working on plan B to save the shipyards without buyers.

The government has to design a good programme which will ensure operations without state subsidies as well as the long term viability of shipbuilding and unions insist on participating in the drafting of such a programme, said Vedran Dragicevic, acting president of the Metalworkers' Union.