State asks Romanian electricity distributor to revise investment plan

The Energy Ministry rejected electricity distributor Electrica’s investment plan for 2015, in the general shareholders meeting on Tuesday, April 28. The ministry is Electrica’s biggest shareholder as it owns almost 49% of its shares. The remaining 51% are held by local and international investors who bought shares in the company’s initial public offering (IPO), in June last year, and afterwards, from the Bucharest Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange. EBRD has an 8.6% stake. Electrica’s total investment budget for 2015 was about EUR 151 million, EUR 135 million of which was for revamping the group’s electricity distribution network, according to the report the group presented to investors. The state’s representatives have asked Electrica to correlate the investment plan for 2015 with that it had in the listing prospectus. According to the prospectus, Electrica should invest some EUR 317 million this year. The company has more than EUR 450 million cash. It planned to use some of the money to buy out Fondul Proprietatea’s minority stakes in its subsidiaries, but the deal didn’t go through as the two sides didn’t agree on the price. Electrica’s shareholders approved the company’s financial statements for 2014 and the distribution of EUR 56 million worth of dividends. However, they rejected the administrators’ contract draft. Electrica had consolidated revenues of EUR 1.13 billion and a net profit of EUR 90.3 million, in 2014. For 2015, Electrica budgeted a 6.5% increase in revenues and a 15% increase in net profit, to over EUR 105 million. The company’s shares are trading on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and its GDRs are trading in London. Electrica has a market capitalization of EUR 937 million, as of April 29. Romanian electricity distributor Electrica ups consolidated net profit by 59% Romanian Electrica’s shares included in MSCI Frontier Markets Index Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com