Deadline passes in steel mills sale with no bids received

No offers had been submitted by the time the deadline passed yesterday for bids in the privatization of Poland's four biggest steel mills. However, this does not mean that the tender for the four mills, at Katowice, Sendzimira, Florian and Cedler, has failed, since the European consortium that had earlier expressed an interest in the sale has asked for an extension of the deadline. "We didn't have enough time to carry out a full analysis, and we are urging the Polish government to extend the time for submitting privatization bids. We are planning to make an offer," said Patrick Saylor, spokesman for Arbed, the Luxembourg company that leads the European consortium. However, it is unclear whether the Treasury Ministry will agree to the request, since the deadline has already been postponed once before. If the privatization fails, the Treasury plans to form a steel conglomerate through the merger of the four steel mills. (Puls Biznesu, p. 6) A.K.