(Adds Eurohold comment) PRAGUE/SOFIA, July 27 (Reuters) - Czech utility CEZ has completed the sale of seven Bulgarian companies to financial group Eurohold for 335 million euros ($396 million), it said on Tuesday, as the company continues to withdraw from some foreign markets. CEZ has already exited Romania and has put some Polish plant assets up for sale. Some of the proceeds from foreign asset sales have gone in payouts to investors, helping to boost its shares. The company paid its second-highest dividend ever for 2020 earnings. CEZ said international arbitration with Bulgaria was continuing despite the market exit, which comes after 17 years in the country. It was exiting with a positive cash balance of over 1 billion crowns ($46 million), it said. CEZ has made a claim against the Bulgarian state, saying it did not comply with obligations in a privatisation agreement. Bulgaria disputes this. “CEZ Group leaves Bulgaria with a positive cash balance. The settlement of the sale has no impact on the international investment arbitration against the Bulgarian state, which is independently pending,” said board member Tomas Pleskac. “The arbitration claim represents additional potential proceeds for CEZ and its shareholders.” CEZ agreed to the sale to financial and insurance group Eurohold in 2019 but faced regulatory hurdles. Eurohold estimated the total value of the deal at 500 million euros, including a mandatory tender offer to minority shareholders in two of the acquired companies. Eurohold, which takes over an energy distributor that provides electricity to over two million clients in northwestern Bulgaria among other assets, raised part of the financing for the deal in a capital increase this month. On Tuesday, it said it had arranged a strategic structured investment by Metric Capital Partners as well as a senior syndicated loan facility, structured by JP Morgan and subscribed by commercial and development banks. ($1 = 21.7600 Czech crowns) $1 = 0.8464 euros Reporting by Jason Hovet, additional reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia Editing by Mike Harrison and Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.