Morgan Stanley and Raiffeisen Capital&Investment to broker Romania's Hidroelectrica IPO

The second largest brokerage company on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, Raiffeisen Capital&Investment (RCI), and investment bank Morgan Stanley have won the brokerage contract to list a share package in Romanian state-owned energy producer Hidroelectrica. The winning consortium will help the state list a package of 15 percent in Hidroelectrica on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The winners will cash in a commission of 0.679 percent of the value of the IPO, so the bigger the sum raised by the state via this listing, the bigger the brokers' commission. The deadline for listing this share package is June 2014. Raiffeisen Capital&Investment worked with the Romanian state in listing Romgaz last year, and with Franklin Templeton fund manager in listing Fondul Proprietatea in 2011. The two winning companies outpaced other big names who had joined the race for Hidroelectrica's IPO. Four other consortia were hoping to win the contract: one was Alpha Finance Romania, Alpha Bank Romania, Deutsche Bank – London branch, SSIF Intercapital Invest, SSIF Broker and Unicredit Bank Austria. The other was made of Erste Group Bank, Goldman Sachs International and Banca Comerciala Romana. A third comprised BRD Groupe Societe Generale, Societe Generale and JP Morgan Securities. While the fourth included Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Wood & Company Financial Services, NBG Securities Romania, NBG Securities, Swiss Capital and BT Securities. Hidroelectrica was under insolvency for a year, between June 2012 and June 2013. In April 2012, the consortium made of BRD – Citigroup – SocGen – Intercapital Invest was selected to assist Hidroelectrica’s market listing, but no brokerage contract was signed, and later on the company went insolvent. Hidroelectrica recorded a profit of around EUR 109 million (RON 481 million) in the first half of 2013, compared to a loss of RON 202 million reported in the same period in 2012. editor@romania-insider.com