Viva Ventures might give up the purchase of the 65% stake in the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC) if the authorities do not accompany the package with a license for the third GSM operator in the country, reads a clause in the sale contract brokered on February 20 between the Vienna-registered consortium and the Privatisation Agency (PA). The enlightening statement was made by the PA executive director Iliya Vassilev at a session of the parliamentary economic committee. We can have a deal without this license should the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) so decides. The office of Viva Ventures in Sofia told the PARI daily they have not spare option on how to proceed in the latter case and prefer tow ait for the decision of the CRC. The parliamentary opposition accused Iliya Vassilev he failed to inform the candidate buyers on the latest amendment in the telecommunications act, under which a license can be issued only after a competition procedure, such as tender. vassilev argued that it is up to the CRC to decide on the issue. The PA had proposed that a license is issued to Viva Ventures with no competition against BGN 53 million, calculated according to the CRC tariffs. The dispute picked up steam when matters came to the ownership over Viva Ventures. According to the committee deputy chairman Unal Tassim of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the Bulgarian institutions are still in the dark as to who ultimately acquires BTC and what the financing scheme will be. Viva ventures is an entity registered specifically to bid for BTC with capital of EUR 16,500, and moreover, it has a 10% participation in the BTC deal, Tassim stated. After the contract was signed on February 20, MRF MPs stated it was early for champagne. Petar Dimitrov of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) said a neighbouring country, different from Turkey has been implementing an expansion strategy and the true buyer has nothing in common with Advent. Viva Ventures' true owner is an affiliate of the US investment fund Advent International. The affiliate is named Advent Central and Eastern Europe (ACEE). I have no idea if this branch actually manages assets worth over EUR 300 million, as the parliamentary strategy required, or not, Vassilev admitted. He said it was not that important who buys BTC but rather who stands behind him, and since Advent group stands behind ACEE, it is Advent group that should be perceived as the true financial investor to acquire BTC for the first 3 years at least. Dimitar Lambovsky of the majority Simeon II National Movement (SNM) said he resigned from the post-privatisation control sub-committee as he strongly opposed the so called special vehicles like Viva Ventures to be allowed in the privatisation of the national assets. All government officials who were involved in this deal must testify whether there have been political pressure exerted by some ministers and by the government as a whole upon the PA to sell BTC, Lambovsky said. The PA's supervisory board has never approved of the contract with Viva Ventures. This is a sale that was carried out through the court, said Theodor Stoev, chairing the PA supervisory board. BSP's Roumen Ovcharov said there are clauses in the contract that breach the strategy and the deal must therefore again be passed through the controlling body. A supervisory board member told the PARI daily on terms of anonymity that Viva Ventures have been chosen by Deutsche Bank of London. The individuals who were so keen to acquire Bulgartabac Holding a year or so ago, have been deliberately misinforming companies like Telefonika and Telia Sonera in order to make them abstain from bidding. The next scandal on the BTC sale erupted after the BSP MPs demanded vice premier and economy minister Lidya Shouleva, and vice premier and communications and transport minister Nikolai Vassilev, as well as Theodor Stoev, to testify on the deal before the parliamentary committee. Shouleva and Vassilev