Sale of SAMIR: Fifteen foreign investors present their offers

News in the SAMIR case. The procedure of judicial liquidation seems to advance. The Commercial Court of Casablanca has received fifteen offers to purchase the assets of the refinery, said the Saudi website, asharqbusiness, stating that these offers come from several countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, the United Kingdom and France, Spain and the United States.    

The Saudi media, citing knowledgeable sources, explained that interested investors, whose identities are not revealed, have submitted offers ranging in value from 1.8 to 2.8 billion dollars. Amounts that exceed the minimum threshold of transfer that started at 800 million dollars.

The Commercial Court of Casablanca, we recall, announced on January 31, the opening of the judicial transfer of SAMIR’s assets. The trustee appointed for the judicial liquidation has given interested investors a period of 30 days to submit their offers.

According to the studies of the Front for the safeguard of the refinery, the assets are estimated at 21 billion dirhams. The restart of the refining activity can be done in 8 months with an estimated cost of 220 million dollars, according to the same source. The cost includes the rights of employees, rehabilitation of facilities … etc..

SAMIR has been put into judicial liquidation since 2016. Since then, the Commercial Court of Casablanca has struggled to find a new buyer for the Refinery, although it has appealed to an investment bank. The State remains the company’s main creditor with an 80% share of accumulated debts.