According to MF daily, yesterday government approved at an extraordinary meeting details about the sale of 7% stake in CEZ through capital market. Finance minister Miroslav Kalousek said that cabinet chose Ceska Sporitelna of
Erste Group as one of its broker. There are speculations that the government plans to involve third party that would buy part of state stake as CEZ has limitations for daily bought back number of shares and consequently sell shares to CEZ. No more details were provided and the government will reveal all info about the transaction once it is over.
Our view:
The decision basically mean that we can expect higher supply of CEZ shares on the market in following days and weeks. We see rumours about third party that would be buying part of the CEZ shares as a pure speculation stemming probably from the fear of price decline as state needs money from the sale of it stake in 3Q07, while CEZ won’t be able to buy all of them by then. We believe that selling of 7% state stake could create some downward pressure on the share price.