Bulgaria seeks investor for Sofia stock exchange

SOFIA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Bulgaria will seek an investor for its controlling 44 percent stake in the Sofia Stock Exchange as part of efforts to turn the operator into a regional market player, Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said on Thursday.

The ministry's press office quoted Djankov as saying that Deutsche Boerse and Wiener Boerse were among potential interested investors.

The Sofia exchange uses the German exchange's Xetra electronic trading platform, while Vienna operator Wiener Boerse already owns large slices of the Budapest, Prague and Ljubljana bourses.

Wiener Boerse said it was in principle interested in the stake but no concrete talks were under way, while Deutsche Boerse declined to comment.

'Our plans are to find an investor in a relatively short (period), up to several months, who will make our bourse a regional player,' said Djankov, who is also a deputy premier in the Balkan country's government that won July elections.

Attempts by previous governments to sell the stake have failed, though they attracted interest from exchanges in western and eastern Europe.

'It (the investor) should be relatively big. Such are the German and the Austrian bourses which have already declared their interest,' Djankov said.

Wiener Boerse bought stakes in the Ljubljana, Prague and Budapest bourses last year as it vies for influence in emerging Europe with the Warsaw stock exchange.

Chief Executive Heinrich Schaller said in an interview in July that operators in Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria were top picks for Wiener Boerse if they went on sale.

Djankov said the new government's plans envisaged linking the Bulgarian exchange to those in Macedonia and other smaller countries as part of a regional system.

The Sofia exchange's total market capitalisation stood at $8.9 billion on Nov. 25, compared with $30.9 billion for the Bucharest bourse in neighbouring Romania.

(Reporting by Irina Ivanova; editing by John Stonestreet) ($1=1.295 Leva) ($1=.6625 Euro) Keywords: BULGARIA BOURSE/SALE ([e-mail]; [phone]; Reuters Messaging: [e-mail]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.