The Romanian government approved the sale of a 24.6% stake in Electrica Oltenia to CEZ. The transaction is to be settled by the end of the month. CEZ will invest EUR 151m, of which EUR 47.4m is for the state stake and the remaining EUR 102.6m is to be used for a capital increase to 51%. As of end 2003 Electrica Oltenia had almost 1.37m customers and sales of 6,820 gigawatt-hours. The Balkan region is in the focus of CEZ’s acquisition strategy. While the price for the minority stake itself might be within an acceptable range, earning sufficient return on total investment (incl. the capital increase) will be a hard test of CEZ’s ability to deeply restructure and operate the distribution company in a challenging environment.