Romanian PM says state won’t sell stake in OMV Petrom for less than EUR 600 million

Romania will get more money from the sale of a 9.84 percent stake in oil company Petrom ( symbol SNP) through the upcoming secondary public offering on the stock exchange than the Social Democratic Government got for the company’s privatization in 2004, Prime Minister Emil Boc said Saturday on Pro TV. "We'll get a bigger price for the sale of the 9.84 percent stake than the EUR 600 million [former prime minister Adrian] Nastase got for the majority stake sale," Boc said, adding the state won't sell the 9.84 percent for less than EUR 600 million. In 2004, Petrom was valued at EUR 2.1 billion and Austria's OMV paid EUR 699 million for a 33.34 percent stake and later raised its share in the Romanian oil company to 51 percent, through a capital increase of EUR 830.6 million. Romania plans to reduce its stake in Petrom to 10.8 percent from the current 20.6 percent in a deal estimated at EUR 510 million, the highest transaction ever on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. More about the upcoming secondary public offering, which will be intermediated by a consortium led by Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital, hereand here. The secondary public offering is scheduled for the end of May. Source: Mediafax