REGISTRATION
Upcoming changes to the financial institutions law will make registration with the central bank mandatory for all companies providing financial services, such as lending or leasing, dnevnik.bg said. Currently, around 400 companies that fall in that category are required to simply notify their business to the central bank. The registration process would pose several requirements. Non-bank lenders will have to provide the central bank with information on their shareholders, the origin of their capital and the professional credentials of their management.

FACTORY BUYER
A company believed to be linked to the Vinprom Peshtera group is the new owner of the Bulgartabac cigarette factory in Plovdiv, the bulletin of the Central Depository showed. Sigma Consulting bought 78 per cent in the Plovdiv cigarette factory on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange for 30 million leva last week, dnevnik.bg said.

NEW OUTLET
Metro Cash & Carry, the German retail chain, has started construction works on a second outlet in the city of Plovdiv. It will be the company’s 11th outlet in Bulgaria when it opens in November 2008. The 10th Metro outlet is currently being constructed in the town of Pleven, northern Bulgaria.

MARITSA IZTOK 1
EXTENSION
US corporation AES has asked Bulgaria’s National Electricity Company (NEK) to approve a one-year extension to the project for a new 710MW coal-fired capacity on the site of the Maritsa Iztok 1 thermal power plant, Bulgaria’s Economy and Energy Ministry said. Talks are in progress to establish the objective reasons for the delay and whether they have to do with the organisation of work or with the contractor Alstom, NEK chief executive director Lyubomir Velkov said.

ANTI-TRUST PROBE
The plans for Eurocom Cable and CableTEL, Bulgaria’s two biggest cable operators, to merge their businesses has prompted a probe from the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC). The commission said that the data collected so far suggested that the resulting company would dominate what CPC called the “paid television segment”, thus harming free competition. CPC would need at least two more months to conduct additional research, because the data was not enough to rule on the proposed deal. After the merger, the resulting company would have a market share in excess of 35 per cent, giving it a dominant position on the market.