PKN Orlen, the Unipetrol privatization tender winner, said yesterday it plans to cooperate with other shareholders in Ceska rafinerska, Unipetrol's 51% subsidiary (the IOC consortium of Agip, Shell, and Conoco holds the remaining 49% stake). Note that the IOC consortium has an option to buy the rest of Cra when majority ownership of Unipetrol changes. Conoco already confirmed it intends to cooperate with PKN; all three minority shareholders in Cra declined to comment whether they plan to exercise their options, though. PKN believes that for the IOC members "it is better to have PKN as a partner in Cra because they alone could not fully utilize the entire capacity", Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
PKN also confirmed that it will finance the acquisition entirely from its own sources. Expected, neutral.
Separately, the National Property Fund said that the privatization purchase agreement should be signed within two weeks. Source: LN Daily.
Jan Hájek, Patria Finance