The Finance Ministry has received four bids for consulting services relating to the privatisation of and injection of fresh capital into the Croatia Osiguranje (CO) insurance company.
The bids were submitted by KPMG Croatia along with its partners; Lazard Freres of Paris with partners, Ernst&Young Paris; the French BNP Paribas bank with its partner Interkapital Vrijednosni Papiri of Zagreb; and Deloitte Zagreb with nine other partners.
The government opened a tender in July calling for consultation services to sell around 50 percent of its ownership stocks in the insurance company.
KPMG Croatia along with its partners KPMG Budapest, KPMG Milano & Wolf Theiss submitted an asking price of HRK 23.55 million without Value Added Tax (VAT) or a total of HRK 29.4 million with VAT.
Lazard Freres and partners' price offered is HRK 28.5 million without VAT or HRK 29.02 million with VAT.
BNP Paribas and partners are asking HRK 19.19 million without VAT or HRK 20.8 million with VAT for the services, and Deloitte's quote with its partners amounts to HRK 18.18 million without VAT or a total of HRK 22.7 million with VAT.
The ministry's commission is to make its selection of the best-buy offer within 30 days.
In the first nine months of this year, CO increased its gross profit by 49.7% compared to the same period last year and now stands at HRK 101.4 million. Consolidated net profit for the CO Group - consisting of 24 independent daughter companies - amounts to HRK 109.5 million, the company reported in a press release on Tuesday.
In the first three quarters of this year, CO achieved total premiums valued at HRK 2.19 billion, or 4 percent less than last year due to the poor economic situation.
Total revenue saw a drop of 0.9% to HRK 2.04 billion and expenditure too was cut in continuation of austerity measures.
By the end of September, CO had increased its capital reserves by 7.3% to HRK 1.72 billion as a result of a greater profit.
"Considering the difficult business climate and continuing recession and crisis, Croatia Osiguranje has managed to retain its stability and profitable business operations. Croatia Osiguranje is a profitable company with an exceptionally high profit resulting from sales strategies and pro-active investments. All profitability indicators have shown a growing trend", CO's CEO Kresimir Starcevic said according to the press release.
