Budapest’s city council has reached agreement with its two foreign partners in the city’s waterworks on how to buy pay their 25 percent share. Budapest will pay HUF 15.1bn to get full control back, having privatized the company in part in 1996. HUF 8bn will be paid with immediate effect, HUF 4bn is to be paid within two years, and it will assume the company’s HUF 3.1bn in debts. The city announced its intentions to do this at the beginning of March, soon after the country’s government had said it hoped foreign companies would re-invest profits in the country.
