Call for expressions of interest in privatizing Tanjug

BELGRADE - Serbia's Privatization Agency issued Friday a public invitation to all interested investors to submit letters of interest in privatizing the national news agency Tanjug and 10 other media outlets in Serbia.

The call for expressions of interest will be open for a period of one month, closing on November 3, and the deadline for privatization of state-owned media is July 1, 2015, the Privatization Agency said in a release.

The expressions of interest should be mailed to or submitted directly at the registry office of the Agency or e-mailed.

Besides information about the investor and the company to be privatized, the letter should also contain more detailed information about intentions behind the privatization - an outline of an investment program, business plans and the like.

The privatization process will be in compliance with the Law on Public Information which, among other things, provides for the privatization of the media only through the sale of the enterprises' capital and for the preservation of employment and related activities after privatization for a period of five years.

For the media that are not privatized by July 1, 2015, the law prescribes transfer of equity to employees in the form of free shares. If the employees do not accept the transfer of free shares, the media outlets will cease to exist and will be deleted from the register, the release said.

Photo Tanjug, S. Radovanovic (illustration, archive)