Belgrade, June 10 - A London-based asset fund said on Tuesday it planned to sell its Balkan portfolio, ranging from dairies to cookie factories and estimated at about one billion euros ($1.56 billion), by next year.
Salford Continental, operating in Serbia via its Dutch-based Danube Foods Group, said it was time to move on after five years of upgrading food-processing industrial assets, a 620 million euros investment in cash and credits.
A timetable for the sale of Knjaz Milos, Serbia's leading water bottler or the country's dairies including Imlek and Bambi cookies producer will be set later this year.
"These are all now healthy, attractive businesses," Rade Pribicevic, head of the corporate division at the Danube Foods Group, told Reuters. "By the end of 2008 we will have a precise time schedule and the sale should be over by mid-2009."
Knjaz, considered to be a leader in a market where per capita mineral water consumption at 55 litres is half of Germany's, turned to profit in 2007 for the first time in years, growing its business by 10 percent.
Imlek and other dairies, controlling a 37 percent of the Serbian fresh milk market, could hope for strong growth after a recent decision by the European Union to allow Serbia to export its milk and dairy products to the bloc.
"But it's mainly about potential," Pribicevic said, adding that only some 60 percent of the milk collected from local farms was in line with tough EU food quality standards.
Pribicevic did not say what he thought the market value of the companies managed by the Danube Foods Group in the region would be, but local media estimate the portfolio to be worth around one billion euros.
"There was an idea of floating the entire system on a stock exchange, but this plan has been abandoned and I would expect these companies to be sold in direct negotiations," he added.
Multinationals appeared to be interested in Knjaz and other Salford-managed assets.
"Coca Cola used to be interested. A company such as Danone could have interest or Nestle, but it's too early to say whether any one of them will be an eventual buyer," Pribicevic said.
Selling its Balkan food portfolio, which also includes dairies in Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro, to a single buyer was unlikely as it would imply a discounted price, he said.
It was too early to tell which sectors would steal Salford's focus in the future, Pribicevic said.
"It could be the food industry again, but also real estate, considering a huge need for all kinds of space," he added.