An electronics and household appliances retail chain and a frozen ski resort project is all that is left in the portfolio of Equest Investment Balkans   investment fund, who up until recently was busy buying out retail and real estate companies in Bulgaria.

Over the past year, since the State General Reserve Fund of the Sultanate of Oman became Equest’s main shareholder, the fund has embarked on a new path of development, although the economic crisis "helped" in that respect too.

Equest Investment Balkans (EIB) was one of the two funds managed by the same team, the other being Equest Balkan Properties, whose shareholding structure also changed in 2008. At the same time, the management of the two funds was split. Equest Balkan Properties stock was delisted and the fund sold most of its assets in Bulgaria, including City Centre Sofia mall. Its website does not list ongoing projects in Bulgaria).

Equest put everything it owned for sale and said it was focusing solely on two of its projects: the Technomarket electronics and household appliances retail chain and the 800 million euro SuperBorovets real estate development, in which Equest owned a 33 per cent stake. A year later, almost everything Equest had has been sold out.

Latest deal
The latest announcement came at the end of November, when Equest said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange’s alternative investment market, where it is listed, that it had agreed the sale of the former car plant in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna, Rodacar, to BA Creditanstalt Bulus, a subsidiary of UniCredit Leasing, for close to 10 million euro.

Sources familiar with the deal said that the price was marginally higher than the price Equest paid for the factory several years ago.

In fact, the Rodacar deal is just part of a bigger deal. The land that BA Creditanstalt Bulus bought will be eventually sold to the Austrian do-it-yourself retail chain Baumax, UniCredit Leasing said. Besides the 10 million euro paid for the land, BA Creditanstalt Bulus will add eight million euro for the construction of the Baumax store for a final price tag of 18 million euro, which Baumax will have to pay over an unspecified period of time. At the end, Baumax will obtain the ownership of both the land and the store, which is scheduled to open for business in the second half of 2010.     

Before deciding to sell Rodacar, Equest had plans to build an office and trade centre on the land. The fund  even secured a permit to build 100 000 square metres of real estate.

What makes the Rodacar site attractive is its position facing Vladislav Varnenchik Boulevard, the main entrance route to the city from Sofia and the local airport. It is also close to the new commercial area of the city, which has expanded at a fast pace in recent years.

Full list
The Rodacar sale is just one on the list of deals signed by Equest over the past year. Just recently, the fund sold its share in Sofia’s centrally-located Serdika hotel. The money from the sale was slated to cover some of Equest’s piling debt. Prior to this deal, the fund also sold Auto Union, the car dealership that sells Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Mazda, Opel and Chevrolet cars, along with Vespa, Piaggio and Gilera motorbikes. The deal included Auto Union’s offices, land and showrooms.

Equest also parted ways with its investment in Bulgaria’s insurance market by selling its stake in Uniqa Bulgaria. Other projects, which never got the green light, such as the Boyana Park luxury gated community (now owned by Greek private equity investors Bluehouse Capital), were also sold. Another project that did not take off and was sold was the planned holiday complex near the town of Kavarna on the Black Sea coast. Equest owned 50 per cent in the project, a stake that the fund has already sold, a source close to Equest told Kapital.

The fund exited the investment that can arguably be described as its most unsuccessful in 2007. This was the deal for the Sofia-based fast moving consumer goods retailer Familia, which the investment fund sold piecemeal. Some of the stores were bought by rival chain Maxima and the rest, along with Familia’s debts, were transferred to Nova Familia, Equest’s then-partner in Familia’s management.