BULGARIA'S TRACE GROUP PLANS 22M LEVA CAPITAL INCREASE

Bulgarian road construction company Trace Group Hold plans to boost its capital by 22 million leva using its own funds, including accumulated reserves and part of its profit, the company said in a statement to the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) on May 19 2011.

The capital hike is subject to approval by Trace Group's shareholders at a meeting scheduled for July 13 2011.

The company plans to allocate 10.88 million leva of its 13.65 million leva profit in 2010 to fund the planned capital increase.

Another 2.2 million leva will be set aside as reserves, while the remaining 579 000 leva will be paid out as dividends.

In 2010 and early 2011, the company obtained 550 million leva to carry out procurement orders, winning most of the projects under the European Union (EU) transport operational programme, in particular the Trakiya motorway project and repairs on the railway connecting the cities of Plovdiv and Bourgas.

Trace Group is also in charge of the maintenance of one-seventh of the roads in the country, or about 3000 kilometres, and has also won contracts to carry out road repairs in Sofia's Vitosha, Lozenetz, Sredetz and Triaditza residential districts.