Energo-Pro Snaps Up Bulgaria Units on Bourse

Czech company Energo-Pro serves households in North-Eastern Bulgaria, including the Black Sea city of Varna. Photo by BGNES

Czech power firm Energo-Pro have acquired the bulk of the capital of its two units in Bulgaria right after the trade with their shares started on the local stock exchange.

The company said now it holds a 94.09% stake in Energo-Pro Grid and a 88.66% stake in Energo-Pro Sales.

On Wednesday, the first day of the trade, Bulgaria raked in BGN 68 M from the sale of most of its 33% minority stake in two local power distribution companies controlled by Czech power firm Energo-Pro.

A total of 94% of all 930,270 shares in the two companies Energo-Pro Grid and Energo-Pro Sales were sold right after the trade on the local stock exchange started on October 3, raising BGN 68 M, well above the government's target of BGN 53 M.

The average price achieved during the trade for the shares from the two companies was BGN 139.35 and BGN 13.89 per share respectively, which is up by 27% and 25% above the minimum offer price, data showed.

The remaining 55,262 shares were offered for sale on Thursday and market players say the bulk of them have most probably been purchased by the majority owner.

Experts have repeatedly called on the government to launch high-quality initial public offerings to bring back to life the capital market, dented by low liquidity and lack of quality stock, as well as to boost revenues. That's why the sale of the minority stakes in the electricity distributors on the stock exchange was a must-do task for 2012.

In 2004, the Balkan country sold 67% in its three power distributors to Germany's E.ON, Austria's EVN and Czech CEZ.

E.ON served households in North-Eastern Bulgaria, including the Black Sea city of Varna. Czech power utility CEZ supplies power to over 2 million households and companies in western Bulgaria, while EVN serves the south-eastern parts of the country.

At the beginning of December German electric energy company E.ON struck a deal to sell its Bulgarian unit E.ON Bulgaria to private Czech company Energo-Pro.

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