Moody’s: CEZ better positioned than Austrian Verbund to withstand falling German power prices in its peer comparison

Moody’s said CEZ better positioned than Austrian Verbund to withstand falling German power prices in its peer comparison Credit Focus report that explain the two-notch differential in their ratings (CEZ A2-Negative; VER Baa1-Stable). "While both utilities operate a predominantly fixed-cost portfolio of power generation assets, CEZ's are largely conventional thermal (nuclear & lignite), while Verbund's are more renewable in nature - mainly run-of-river hydro and pumped storage. This means CEZ can reduce its cost of generation when falling CO2 prices are the driver of a decline in power prices," say Moody’s. Moody's (71,44 USD, 2,12%) notes that CEZ is also able to sell its power much further forward than Verbund as the thermal fleet provides more consistent levels of production than hydro, which is weather dependent. This results in higher cash flow predictability for CEZ compared with Verbund. / Despite the most of informations in the summary of Moody’s report are relatively well-known, headlines may be slightly positive for CEZ shares./