As expected Romanian Government called on bidders for Electrica Muntenia Sud to submit improved bids within six weeks. CEZ has been recently shortlisted in tender for 67.5% stake in the most profitable Romanian power distributor, which serves 1.08m customers. Besides CEZ, four other companies have qualified: Italian Enel, French Gaz de France, Spanish Iberdrola and German RWE. Negotiations will be held with two top bidders. According to update from Romanian Government, privatization should be finalized in the second part of this year. Given the tight competition, Romanian Government expects to receive cEUR 750m, which implies cEUR 695 per customer. From our point of view expected price seems to be high, mainly if we take into account other tenders already realized in the region. Nonetheless, we see this news as neutral for today’s trading with CEZ and reiterate our Hold recommendation.
Separately, CEZ rescheduled release of consolidated figures for March 21, 2006 at 10:00 CET instead of March 31, 2006. CEZ will hold a conference call to present its consolidated figures on March 21 at 12:30 CET, dial-in number: +44 207 162 0025.