A significant but bankrupt wood processor in northeast Greece finally found a new owner and investor on Thursday, with a successful auction completed after several years of delay and three previous null and void sell-offs.
The winning bid for the Shelman plant near the city of Komotini reached 5.77 million euros, marginally above the minimum requested offer of 5.769 million euros. The latter was 55 percent lower than the price set in the first such auction last July, i.e. 12.82 million euros.
The new owner, which was not initially announced, must re-open the plant for at least three years after the transaction is finalized, a period that does not include preparatory actions dealing with the successful auction, and which cannot exceed a year.
The new owner must, according to conditions of the auction, rehire 30 percent of the previous workforce at the time it ceased operation, and with a wage scale not less than foreseen in a collective bargaining agreement for each specialization.
Conversely, eligible former employees will have 20 days to accept an offer for rehiring once they receive such a notification.
Given the plant’s location in a border region (Rhodope prefecture), only individuals or legal entities with an EU citizenship or based in a EU member-state or European Free Trade Association member, respectively, would participate in the auction.
