The Prague daily MFDnes reports today that the privatization price could change after a special audit that will be completed in April 2002. Should the audited equity of CEZ and the regional distributors to be sold together turn out to be less than 75% of current equity value, the investors can terminate the planned sale, should it be in the range of 75-92.5% of current equity value an investor can ask for purchase price reduction (the opposite holds if audited equity exceeds current equity). We believe that a 7.5% difference between current and audited equity is rather unlikely, and that a 25% difference is extremely unlikely; nevertheless the post-privatization price change, or even privatization termination, can not be completely ruled out based on the above. The impact on the stock should be marginal, though.
(Jiri Soustruznik)