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First Investment Bank up for sale - sources
UniCredit Bulbank and Postbank vie to acquire Bulgaria’s fifth largest lender

Radev’s revenge, the looming deficit and a frog
Reality is back with a vengeance, GDP keeps growing, and our Real Estate report is out

The lost decade of Bulgaria
The governments of Boyko Borissov promised reform, but instead created an apparatus for extortion and clientelism

The dark era of Bulgarian football
Over the past 15 years, professional football has turned into a closed system of interests, mired in corruption scandals and deteriorating quality. This might be finally coming to an end.

A toy war
How one toy retailer got mixed-up in anti-government protests and received an uninvited buy-out offer

How the government bought a bank
The government has cleared the last hurdle on the path to the Eurozone’s waiting room by purchasing a 20% stake in the private lender for 140 million levs

Is State Capitalism Marching On?
Within a brief period, Bulgaria’s government has aggressively injected billions of levs into key sectors, and has effectively started nationalizing businesses

MRF Corporation
Launched as a party fighting for the political representation of Bulgaria’s ethnic Turks, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms has morphed into a quasi-business organization quietly pulling strings behind the scenes

Seventeen moments of autumn
The recent spate of "spying scandals" involving Russian diplomats and the leader of Bulgaria’s National Russophile Movement Nickolay Malinov are more reminiscent of a bad Soviet-era joke rather than a real espionage drama

A new old gatekeeper of status quo
Ivan Geshev, a self-described "boy from the city’s suburbs", will become Bulgaria’s next prosecutor general in January. His selection will have dramatic implications for the rule of law

Witch hunter General
The selection of Ivan Geshev as the next Prosecutor General will likely go unopposed, triggering seven more wasted years on the anti-corruption front and even more blatant institutional abuse of power.

The Oligarchs' Coffer
The state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank has morphed from a small and medium-sized business aide to a lender of last resort for unstable and sometimes unsavory large companies

Perestroika at Lukoil Bulgaria
Valentin Zlatev has been replaced after 20 years at the helm of the Russian company’s operations in the Balkan country


Having a fact-based opinion is now a felony in Bulgaria
The criminal sentence handed to Capital Weekly investigative journalist Rossen Bossev could serve as a precedent to suppress future journalistic investigations

What should Bulgaria expect from the euro?
It is now clear that euro zone membership has improved the economic performance of new member states


Who owns the newspapers in Bulgaria?
Most of their owners are semi-anonymous, print media lose ad revenue and sell their content to the highest bidder

Players to watch: Fifty shades of Conservatives
Anti-liberal nativism is the new black on the Bulgarian political scene and this could cause serious trouble after the upcoming elections.