Romanian state-owned chemical producer Oltchim will enter insolvency, after the Ramnicu Valcea court approved its request today (January 30 ). The decision can be further appealed for seven days.

The company will be assigned a judiciary administrator to establish the next steps and help it re-organize. “For the time being we are waiting for administrator to talk. The factory is functional, and there's not a question of protests. We will sit down and talk to the judiciary administrator about what needs to be done. Oltchim's debt will freeze,” said Corneliu Cernev, the employees union leader at Oltchim, quoted by Mediafax.

The Government recently asked for Oltchim's insolvency after failing to privatize it last year. After the company is 'cleaned up', the privatization will be back on the table, this time with a strategic investor.

Oltchim's insolvency is among the measures agreed by the Government with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which recently ran a review mission in Romania.

The bid for Oltchim was won last year by media mogul Dan Diaconescu, who failed to pay the EUR 45 million he had pledged to offer. After the failed privatization, Romania did not give a new privatization term for the company, which is indebted and whose workers suffered payment delays in the last months of 2012.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: sxc.hu)