Financial news

Employers and trade unions are to stage their second nationwide protest against the planned increase of the electricity price for business and industrial consumers. There will be demonstrations in around 29 cities and more than 1,000 companies are expected to joint it. Along with the effective protests, many of the companies will also suspend their work and activities. The business is also discontent with the increase of the “obligation to society” fee. We do not accept the new prices for the “obligations to society” because they will lead to a loss for the entire society!” – this is said in the official joint declaration of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (BICA), the Bulgarian Industrial Association, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation and Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (KRIB). The protest of the business is also backed by the trade unions.

From 2016 age pension begins to grow again. Next year, women will retire upon reaching 60 years and 10 months of age, and men - 63 years and 10 months. Both age groups rose by 2 months from the current levels. By two months is raised and the required length of service for retirement next year as it becames 35 years and 2 months for women and 38 years and 2 months for men. Both indicators will gradually grow to reach 65 years for men and women, as well as 37 years of experience for women versus 40 years of experience for men. The choice of a pension fund to collect pension contributions will be personal and can be changed up to five years before going into well-deserved rest. This was decided definitively by Parliament at second reading on the amendments to the Social Insurance Code.

	Mineral Fuels, Tailoring Products, Canning, Perfumery and Cosmetics, Furniture, Meat Products, Wine, Wood-processing Industry

Companies

Bulgarian mobile operator Mobiltel, a unit of Telekom Austria Group, signed a networks sharing agreement with mobile telecommunications operator Max. Max will use Mobiltel's network at a wholesale payment and will offer a service under its own brand at retail prices, which were agreed on a commercial basis. Max’s clients will use its own network in the major cities of Bulgaria and when they leave Max coverage they will have the benefit of using the services offered in the well spread-out network of Mobiltel. At the moment Max network covers only 40% of Bulgaria's population. Sofia-based Max Telecom began operations as a WiMAX operator in 2007. In 2014 the company was acquired last year by London-based private equity investor Daniel Kupsin. In May last year it launched a mobile internet service based on 4G Long-term Evolution (LTE) technology. Mobiltel which operates under the Mtel brand, provides fixed and mobile voice services, Internet and TV over fiber and satellite connectivity over four million customers. The telco has 99,99% network coverage of the country and a fixed network covering around 30% of Bulgarian households.

Expectations of municipal authorities in Plovdiv region are that in six to eight years’ time number of employees in IT and BPO sectors that are 4500 at present will double. 150 thousand square meters of new offices will be built, in addition. Plovdiv’s annual gross domestic product is assessed at EUR 6 billion, as 50% of it comes from manufacturing. Investment in the town has gone up since 2009. For the last 15 years more than 120 companies have entered the region, as the made investment is calculated at more than EUR 1 billion. Among the largest private investors in the region are Liebherr and Kaufland with its logistics center in Rakovsky. The administration expects to create 30 thousand new jobs in the coming 10 years. Exploitation of Sensata’s factory will begin by the end of the year. In addition construction of a plant of the Japanese SMC will start, too. Negotiations are ongoing with two German investors. Up to 10 years we expect at least one carmaker, Deputy Mayor Stefan Stoyanov, said.

Stockholm-based international entertainment group Modern Times Group (MTG) said its Bulgarian operations generated 13% constant foreign currency sales growth in the first quarter of the year, following healthy linear and online sales development and higher media house audience share. "The Bulgarian TV advertising market is estimated to have grown," MTG said in its latest financial report posted on its website. The company's commercial share of viewing in Bulgaria stood at 41.1% in the second quarter of 2015, compared to 35.1% a year earlier. MTG's operations in Bulgaria consist of five linear TV channels, the Nova Play advertising-funded video-on-demand website, as well as news sites.

Deal for the site of Czech embassy in Sofia’s center is about to turn into one of the largest on the real estate market in 2015. Three candidates handed out price offers and deposited price guarantees for participation in the tender to the amount of EUR 150 thousand. FairPlay International, a company for construction and investment in real estate got the highest offer, assessed at EUR 5.8 million. It is followed by Lidl Bulgaria and Omnicar Invest, the company of Speedy’s owner. The building of the embassy is located at 9 Yanko Sakuzov Boulevard, adjacent to Levski monument and Square 500. The site has an area of 3.5 acres. A building on five floors with 6432 square meters built-up area is located on it. The buyer has the right to demolish the building and to erect a new one at its place, with nearly the same height. At present the site is intended for special needs, i.e. for an embassy complex with low building parameters. Companies in the sector find the deal symbolic if it is considered as a sale of land instead of a pure building.

The financial results of the fertilizer plant Neochim continue to improve in the second quarter. After 2014 was bad for the Dimitrovgrad-based company, this one has been quite good. At the end of June, revenues were up 21% and compared to the loss of a year ago, now the company reports a strong gain of BGN 14.2 million. All this is reflected in the price of the company's shares, which yesterday rose at one point to 10%. The company sells most of its production in the country - 57%, the rest is exported. However, sales abroad rose at higher rate than those on the domestic market. The largest share in revenue is held by ammonium nitrate, both in the country and abroad. One reason for the significant improvement of the results is good international environment in the market of agricultural fertilizers and good prices there. In terms of costs, a positive impact on the activities of Neochim had the stable price of natural gas - a major component in the production of fertilizers.

Europe

The U.K. economy grew in line with expectations in the second quarter, underlining optimism over the country’s economic outlook and supporting the case for higher interest rates, preliminary official data showed. In a report, the Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product expanded by a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in the three months ended June 30, meeting forecasts. The U.K.’s economy grew by 0.4% in the preceding quarter. Year-over-year, U.K. economic growth expanded 2.6% in the second quarter, in line with expectations. The U.K. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.9% in the first quarter. According to the report, mining and quarrying output posted the biggest increase since 1989, while industrial output rose by the most since the fourth quarter of 2010.On the downside, manufacturing production dropped by the most since the first quarter of 2013. GBP/USD was trading at 1.5562 from around 1.5541 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7107 from 0.7122 earlier.

America

Ford Motor Co. reported a 46% jump in net income for the second quarter with North America recording its largest quarterly profit ever and profit margins rising in Asia Pacific. The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker said Tuesday it earned $1.9 billion in net profits during the quarter, a sharp increase from the $1.3 billion it made over the same three-month period a year ago, as its performance in North America rebounded after a sluggish first quarter. Revenue was nearly flat, down less than a percentage point over the prior-year period and world-wide sales were up 2% with the company selling more cars in North America and Europe than it did a year earlier. Ford reported pretax profit of $2.9 billion, up from $2.6 billion a year earlier. The No. 2 U.S. auto maker beat analyst expectations by 10 cents, reporting earnings per share of 47 cents, as operating margins rose to 11.1% in North America and 7.8% in Asia Pacific.

Asia

China’s securities regulator is investigating the stocks selloff on Monday that sent the nation’s benchmark index to its biggest loss in eight years. The China Securities Regulatory Commission set up a legal enforcement taskforce on Tuesday to check for clues related to the large-scale selling, spokesman Zhang Xiaojun said in a statement on the regulator’s website. The CSRC will examine stock exchanges’ monitoring and complaint reports, without giving more details. The probe is the latest effort by the government to crack down on reports of market manipulation after a recent equities rout wiped out nearly $4 trillion. China is investigating companies in Shanghai’s free-trade zone that may have exploited looser policy controls to manipulate the market, people familiar with the matter said last week. The Ministry of Public Security said this month it’s helping the securities regulator look into evidence of “malicious” short selling of stocks and indexes. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.7 percent to 3,663 on Tuesday.

Raina Knyaginya

Raina Popgeorgieva Futekova, known as Raina Knyaginya (Princess Raina) was a Bulgarian teacher and revolutionary, who embroidered the flag of the April Uprising. She was born on January 18, 1856 in Panagyurishte. The school board, impressed by her natural talent and intelligence, decided to make her a teacher, and offered to send her to the high school at Stara Zagova. Four years later, she came back to her hometown and became head mistress of the local school. In 1876, she was called one day to the house of a teacher, where she found a gathering of citizens. Among them was the great Benkovski who turned to Raina and asked her to embroider the famous flag. For a month in feverish haste, she secretly plied her needle, tracing on a green field the device "Liberty or Death." The fateful day arrived and as Raina, fully armed, rode beside Benkovski, bearing the banner, the ranks of the insurgents swelled and they fearlessly shouted, "Long live the Bulgarian Princess! Long live the Voivoda." But organization won in the end. Men, women and children were massacred and the houses were burned. Raina escaped the wholesale massacre, but in a few days was arrested. Due to the concerted action of the European diplomatic representatives, she was released, but sentenced to a life long exile. Raina chose to go to Russia, but the news of liberty came and she returned to Bulgaria where she worked as a teacher. Raina the Princess died on July 29, 1917 in Sofia. Currently, her house in Panagyurishte (picture in the left) has been turned into a museum and in 1950 declared a cultural monument of natural importance. It was thoroughly restored over the period 1979-1981, and the former workshop on the ground floor was turned into an exhibition hall, showing various items and documents, related to her life and to the uprising, including the flag of Rayna the Princess.

On that day:  Biosphere resort Chuprene