Bulgaria’s privatization commission has sold an 80% stake in Magnetic Heads, located in Bulgaria’s southwest town of Razlog, to Silicon Valley company DRS Ahead Technology Inc for $340,000, after sales to another US buyer twice fell through. The other 20% will be offered at preferential prices to company employees. The plant produces magnetic heads for tape drives, disk drives, card readers and writers and magnetic sensors. Revenue last year amounted to 6,200m levs, about $2.5m, with 95% of output exported to the US and Western Europe. DRS Ahead has agreed to invest $2.3m in the company over the next five years, to preserve the existing 92 jobs, and to increase employment at the plant to 139 by the end of the period. Bulgaria is in urgent need of cash from privatizations to meet its huge foreign debt payments.
