The fund owns a 12% stake in Enel Distributie Muntenia, 24.1% in Enel Distributie Banat and 24.1% in Enel Distributie Dobrogea, companies which Enel plans to sell. The stakes are valuated as follows: Enel Distributie Banat – EUR130 million, Enel Muntenia- EUR107 million, Enel Dobrogea – EUR86 million. The fund also owns a 12% stake in Enel Energie Muntenia and a 12% stake in Enel Energie.
Romanian state-owned energy producer Nuclearelectrica (SNN.RO) said Friday it is analyzing the possibility to acquire some of Enel’s operations in Romania, but did not submit any offer to Enel in this respect, adding a potential decision of the company’s management will be subject to shareholders’ approval.
Romania’s energy minister Razvan Nicolescu went last week to Rome for talks with the management of Enel on the sale of the Italian group’s Romanian units.
Nicolescu told a news conference last Tuesday that the Romanian government considers energy distribution a strategic sector especially in the Dobrogea region (southeastern Romania, near the Black Sea), considering what is currently happening east of Romania (the Ukraine situation).
“We do not encourage anyone to file an offer to buy the Dobrogea distribution company, especially when Romanian state-owned companies are interested,” Nicolescu said.
Enel, which controls a third of the local electricity distribution market, announced in July that it plans to sell, by the end of the year, its electricity distribution and supply operations in Romania and Slovakia, as part of a debt cut program.
The sale would involve the 64.4% stake in Enel Distributie Muntenia SA and Enel Energie Muntenia SA, the 51% stake in Enel Distributie Banat SA, Enel Distributie Dobrogea SA and Enel Energie SA, as well as the 100% interest in the services company Enel Romania Srl (held by Enel through Enel Investment Holding BV).
According to Enel, these companies manage a power grid of about 91,000 kilometers in the regions in which they operate, distributing about 14 TWh of electricity a year (with a domestic market share of 34%) and selling nearly 9 TWh a year to about 2.6 million customers.
Fondul Proprietatea was set up in 2005 to compensate Romanians whose properties were seized during communism. U.S. hedging fund Elliott Associates is the fund’s largest shareholder, with a 15.2% stake.