The share of Chimimport's companies in the total capitalisation of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) has reached 15%, Pari daily's calculations show. The evaluation of the holding alone stands at BGN 2.27 billion, which is nearly as much as the market cap of its all eight public subsidiaries. A year and a half ago Chimimport announced its plans to make all its bigger companies public. Now that Zarneni Hrani Bulgaria has been listed, our next move will be listing Armeets insurance company, the deputy chairman of Chimimport's management board, Alexander Kerezov, told the Pari daily. After Hemus Air and Bulgaria Air merge, the airline will also become public, most probably in 2009, he added. According to Chimimport's executive director, Ivo Kamenov, the merger may be completed by the end of 2008. Chimimport is gradually becoming one of the key market players. The whole structure of the group is assessed at BGN 4.23 billion, compared with BSE's total capitalisation of BGN 28.35 billion. Central Cooperative Bank is one of the main public companies in Chimimport's portfolio. For the past six months the bank's market cap has not fallen below BGN 700 million. On Monday, it reached BGN 774.9 million after the price of the shares jumped by 7.36% to BGN 10.65. In late 2007 the holding consolidated its grain business into one company, Zarneni Hrani Bulgaria. The market assesses it at nearly BGN 750 million. Other public companies of Chimimport include Bulgarian River Shipping (BGN 266.71 million) and Oil and Gas Exploration & Production (BGN 162.76 million). The group is also owner of three of the eight registered pension companies in Bulgaria, as well as of CCB Asset Management, which manages three mutual funds.
Source: Pari (08.01.2008)

Despite the global financial crash that practically swept the capital markets in the world, the pension funds in Bulgaria manage to keep positive profitability. The average annual yield of the universal funds by the end of September 2008 is 2.36%. For the first half-year the insurance system in the country has been managing assets at BGN 2.39 billion and insured 3.5 million people
Source: Pari (08.10.2008)