In a newspaper interview, CEZ’s new CEO and BoD chairman Jaroslav Míl outlined his ideas about CEZ strategy; his comments lead us to believe that there will likely be a good deal of continuity in CEZ’s business strategy under Míl’s leadership. Míl spoke in favor of CEZ keeping its high-voltage transmission grid (the Ministry of Finance wants to spin off the grid from CEZ, though Cabinet lacks consensus on the issue and CEZ is strongly opposed). As for CEZ’s commercial policy, Míl seems to support the current CEZ policy of exporting everything that cannot be sold on the domestic market, though he may place more emphasis on the profitability of these exports (which has often been questioned by the media and environmentalists). Míl spoke against CEZ selling off less efficient power plants, contrary to the plans of the previous management, but does not rule out such a thing in the long term. Overall, his views do not seem to differ much from traditional “CEZ thinking”; the greatest difference seems to be over the selling of less efficient plants, which is not a critical issue. Our CEZ recommendation remains a buy.
(Ondřej Daťka)