Lazard, STJ and Deloitte compete to advise Romania's Hidroelectrica on listing

Consultancy firms Lazard, STJ and Deloitte have submitted offers to provide state-owned power producer Hidroelectrica with consultancy services in the process of preparing the company’s listing on the stock exchange.

The contract is worth EUR 1.75 million and the deadline for submitting the offers was February 10, according to data extracted by Ziarul Financiar from the public procurement platform SEAP.

This so-called equity consultant is totally different from the consultant that will be later selected to manage the actual sale process and the listing, ZF pointed out. Hidroelectrica is currently analyzing the technical offers submitted by the three bidders, the deadline for this being May 29, 2020, SEAP data shows.

Listing Hidroelectrica’s shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) would bring Romania closer to the emerging market status, which would attract a much stronger group of investors and investment funds.

Hidroelectrica’s initial public offering (IPO) has been expected for many years. In April 2012, a consortium made of BRD, Citigroup, Societe Generale and Intercapital Invest was selected to manage the sale of a 10% stake in Hidroelectrica but the company went into insolvency a few months later.

After Hidroelectrica completed its restructuring process, in January 2014, the Government carried out another selection process and chose Raiffeisen Bank and Morgan Stanley to manage the sale of a 15% stake in Hidroelectrica through IPO. However, this sale didn’t take place.

This time, Hidroelectrica’s IPO could include both new shares issued by the company as well as existing shares sold by the Romanian state, which holds 80% of the company, and maybe Fondul Proprietatea, which holds the remaining 20%.

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