“We hope the 15% stake in Transelectrica will be up for subscription at the end of February. We do not see any reason for the delay of this cours,” said Florin-Laurentiu Vladan, the head of the Economy Ministry’s privatization and state ownership office OPSPI.
The ministry owns 73.7% in Transelectrica and plans to sell additional shares on the Bucharest stock exchange.
Regarding the sale of a 15% stake in gas transporter Transgaz (TGN.RO), Vladan said the offer should unfold in March-April next year.
Regarding natural gas producer Romgaz, the OPSPI official said the offer will be launched in June or in September.
“It is a more complicated process, because Romgaz is not listed, and if we can’t launch it in June, we will do it in September, not in the summer,” Vladan said.
According to the letter of intent agreed between local authorities and the International Monetary Fund, a 15% stake in Romgaz should be listed on the bourse by the end of June next year.
OPSPI gave brokers until December 29 to bid on the contract to intermediate the launch.
Vladan went on saying that the listing of electricity producers Hidroelectrica and Nuclearelectrica should happen in the last quarter of 2012.
According to the letter of intent for the IMF, the listing of Hidroelectrica, which will involve the sale of a 10% stake on the bourse, will be complete by the end of October next year. The company will be listed following a 10% increase in its share capital. The same will be applied to Nuclearelectrica as well.
“We hope to list Hidroelectrica in October, and Nuclearelectrica around late November or early December,” Vladan said.
He added the government will once again try to sell a 9.84% stake in OMV Petrom (SNP.RO), after a first attempt that failed because of low investor interest.
“This will probably happen between Transelectrica and Trangaz, or immediately after Trangaz,” Vladan said, adding the state cannot “afford” another failure in such operations.
The OPSPI official went on saying that a lesson learned from the Petrom failure resulted in a change in the selection criteria for brokers. As such, the technical aspects will have an 80% relevance in the bid, while the financial aspects will count for 20%.
When selecting a broker for the Petrom public offering, the technical and financial aspects of bids weighed equally.
The government also plans to sell a 20% stake in airline operator Tarom, for which it expects to obtain between EUR20 million and EUR60 million.
Local authorities agreed with the International Monetary Fund to sell minority stakes in several companies.
Thus, the Economy Ministry plans to float 10%-15% stakes in companies such as Romgaz, Transgaz, Nuclearelectrica, Transelectrica, Transgaz and Hidroelectrica.
Wednesday in Bucharest, Transelectrica shares traded down 0.9%, slightly underperforming the general market.