Jump in the Price of Electricity is Proposed by the Commission for Energy and Water Regulation, this became clear from a published report by the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC). A jump in the price of electricity by an average of 3.48% is proposed by the Energy and Water Regulation Commission. The accounts show that the electricity price for subscribers in Southeastern Bulgaria could be the most expensive - 3.59%. For CEZ and Energo Pro, the change is 3,46% and 3,38% respectively. The new prices will be discussed at the beginning of June, if approved, they will enter into force in the summer.

Fund of Funds launched a fund manager selection procedure for the last of the three Acceleration and Initial Funding Funds. The type of funding aims to support the creation of a favorable entrepreneurial environment and sustainable business models. Public funds of BGN 35.6 million under the Operational Program 'Innovation and Competitiveness' 2014-2020 (OPIC), co-financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds, are expected to be supplemented by private capital of at least 10%. The Acceleration and Initial Funding Fund is an acceleration program that provides equity financing to start-ups at an early stage in their development. Within the program, approved candidates have access to business leaders who share their experience and give them practical guidance on how to develop their project. The accelerator also provides participants with training, administrative, accounting, legal and other activities or services.

Polish honey maker M Food intends to acquire an 85% stake in peer JGV Bulgaria by increasing the Bulgarian company's capital by BGN 940,000. After wrapping up the capital increase, M Food is planning to acquire a further 5% stake from JGV Bulgaria's current owner for up to BGN 60,000. JGV Bulgaria currently has a registered capital of BGN 160,000, and is fully owned by local private investor. In October last year, M-Food said that its supervisory board has mandated the company's management board to start negotiations for the acquisition of a majority stake in JGV Bulgaria. According to its most recent annual financial statement, JGV Bulgaria pocketed a net profit of BGN 718,000 in 2017, on revenue of BGN 10.7 million.

State-owned Bulgarian Posts said that it has signed a BGN 3.2 million deal for the purchase of licenses for the use of Microsoft products from local Telelink Business Services. The deal was signed on May 16, Bulgarian Posts said. Three companies placed bids in the public procurement procedure for the contract. Telelink Business Services, along with Telelink Infra Services, Telelink City Services and Telelink Labs, forms the Telelink Bulgaria holding group.

Arena Cinema announced that “starting May 23 the cinemas in Arena Mladost Sofia and Arena Zapad Sofia are temporarily closed. The interruption is necessary in connection with the occurrence of legal circumstances that need time to resolve." According to Capital, the dispute is between US investment company Apollo Global Management and companies around the creator of the cinema chain Stefan Minchev. Minchev did not regularly serve his loans to UBB and Postbank for a total amount of EUR 30 million and the two financial institutions sold the collateral to Apollo last year. The sum includes the principal of the debts to the two banks and their leasing companies, as well as the related interest and penalties for delayed payments. Meanwhile, with a series of transfers, bankruptcies and contributions of land and buildings, assets move away from the debtor and creditor. Due to loopholes in the law, creditors, even having authority on the asset, are in fact not allowed to take part in the bankruptcy of the hindmost company. Both parties to the dispute have abstained from commenting.

Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission has asked local Expat Asset Management to provide further documents and information regarding its request for permission to set up a new open-end mutual fund - Expat Bulgaria Short SOFIX. Expat Asset Management intends to list the fund for trading on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange once its set up. Expat Asset Management currently manages 11 exchange-traded funds (ETFs), tracking the blue-chip indices of stock exchanges in 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. The company also manages three mutual funds with global focus. Expat Asset Management is a unit of local Expat Capital.

Bulgarian telecommunications and IoT products company Allterco turned to a consolidated net profit after minority interest of BGN 615,000 in the first quarter of 2019 from a net loss of BGN 500,000 in the same period of 2018. The company's total revenue grew to BGN 11.8 million in the January-March period of 2019 from BGN 9.6 million in the comparable period of last year. Total expenses increased to BGN 11.0 million in the review period from BGN 10.0 million the year before, following a rise in cost of goods sold. Last month, Norway's LINK Mobility Group filed for approval from Bulgaria's competition authority to acquire five telecommunications subsidiaries of Allterco. In December 2018, Allterco received approval from its shareholders to sell its five subsidiaries to LINK Mobility Group for at least EUR 7.9 million. The deal was initially expected to be completed by the end of April 2018, but the negotiations between the two companies were temporarily suspended as Victory Partners VII Norway launched a takeover offer for LINK Mobility Group.

Volkswagen AG is making changes to its battery-purchasing plan worth about 50 billion euros over concerns one if its supply deals, with Samsung SDI Co. Ltd., might unravel. Samsung initially agreed to deliver batteries for just over 20 gigawatt hours, enough to power 200,000 cars with 100 kilowatt hour packs, before different views on production volume and schedule emerged during detailed negotiations, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are confidential. The impasse cut pledged supplies to less than 5 gigawatt hours, they said. Access to vast amounts of batteries to power a growing number of electric vehicles has emerged as a new battleground for global automakers amid capacity constraints, supply bottlenecks and limited access to raw materials. Producing batteries safe to use in cars is more complex than the technology used for consumer electronic devices like smartphones.

“Apple Inc. was sued by customers who claim the company is unlawfully disclosing and selling information about people’s iTunes purchases as well as their personal data, contrary to the company’s promise in advertising that ‘What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone,'” Robert Burnson and Edvard Pettersson report for Bloomberg. “Three iTunes customers from Rhode Island and Michigan sued Friday in federal court in San Francisco seeking to represent hundreds of thousands of residents of their home states who allegedly had their personal listening information disclosed without their consent,” Burnson and Pettersson report. “‘For example, any person or entity could rent a list with the names and addresses of all unmarried, college-educated women over the age of 70 with a household income of over $80,000 who purchased country music from Apple via its iTunes Store mobile application,’ the customers said. ‘Such a list is available for sale for approximately $136 per thousand customers listed.'”

Profits earned by China’s industrial companies contracted in April after a sharp rebound in the previous month, adding to concerns about the already slowing economy in the wake of a recent escalation in Sino-U.S. trade tensions. Profits in April dropped 3.7% year-on-year to 515.4 billion yuan ($74.80 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Monday, compared with a 13.9% surge in March. For the first four months of 2019, industrial profits dropped 3.4% on an annual basis to 1.81 trillion yuan. Industrial firms’ liabilities grew 5.5% from a year earlier to 63.87 trillion yuan by end-April, compared with a 6.5% rise at the end of the first quarter. The data covers large companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan from their main operations.