Big multinational Companies are bidding to snatch the National Alcohol & Liquor Factory (NALF), one of the oldest state-owned liquor factories in Ethiopia, The Reporter has learnt.
The factory’s initial bidding price is estimated to be at 1.2 billion birr.
According to sources, multinational companies in the beverage and liquor business including Diageo, Duet – a UK based company – which also owns more than 50 percent share in Dashen Brewery and companies involved in the international tobacco business showed interest to acquire the state-owned alcohol and Liquor factory.
The Reporter also learnt that a local company by the name of Lominat Trading will also be a part of the bidding process.
This came after April, 2018, when the Ministry of Public Enterprise floated an international tender to fully transfer the factory to a private entity.
It is to be recalled that a new regulation was introduced to increase the paid-up capital of NALF. In this respect, it was expanded from 12.2 million birr to 221 million birr.
In addition, the factory, over the past few years, has consumed close to one billion birr in the expansion and renovation of its plants. The factory has four plants located in Mekanisa, Sebeta, Akaki and Maichew.
The company which is one of the most profitable state-owned enterprises has managed to expand its profit over the years. With close to 700 employees, National Alcohol has managed to register a profit of 607 million birr, back in 2016.
The factory was first established in early 20th century by an Armenian businessman Elias Papassinos. In the 1970’s, NALF was nationalized by the Derg regime and it was taken from its former owner Berhane Gebremedhin. The Ministry and Berhane were in a dispute for years, where the later requested for the return of the company.
The Ethiopian Privatization Agency, which was first established in 1994 and later restructured as Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA) and again changed its name into the Ministry of Public Enterprises, has managed to transfer more than 370 public enterprises to the private sector todate.
As far as privatization of public enterprises is concerned, since its establishment, the transfer of 40 percent government shares in the National Tobacco Enterprise came at the top in terms of generating revenue. The government bagged USD 510 million from this particular transaction.
Though the Ministry over the past six months of the current fiscal year planned to collect 1.7 billion birr in revenue from the transfer of enterprises, in effect it has managed to collect whopping 12.7 billion birr.
As far as the bid for the transfer of National Alcohol & Liquor Factory is concerned, the tender will open in June 19, 2018.
