Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said that the private investment fund Fondul Proprietatea (FP) will list at least 15 % of shares
of majority state-owned electricity producer Hidroelectrica on the Bucharest Stock Exchange as soon as possible, without waiting for the Government to join in.
Minister Popescu said that the imposed ban prevents the Government to launch an IPO of its shares in Hidroelectrica, but it supports listing the entire stake of FP or a part of it on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Prior to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, the Government planned to list 10 % of its shares in the company.
According to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Romanian Government is planning to launch the IPO by the end of the third quarter of 2022, so the listing of FP’s shares would be sooner than that. With current valuation of 8.6 billion euros, listing of at least 15 % of Hidrorelectrica’s shares would bring 1.3 billion euros to Fondul Proprietatea.
FP currently holds 20 % stake in Hidroelectrica.
Hidroelectrica’s IPO has been expected for many years. In April 2012, a consortium made of BRD, Citigroup, Societe Generale and Intercapital Invest was selected to manage the sale of a 10 % stake in Hidroelectrica, but the company went into insolvency a few months later.
After Hidroelectrica completed its restructuring process, in January 2014, the Government carried out another selection process and chose Raiffeisen Bank and Morgan Stanley to manage the sale of a 15 % stake in Hidroelectrica through IPO. However, this sale did not take place.
In May 2020, Hidroelectrica selected Dentons Europe as its legal advisor for the upcoming initial public offering of the company’s shares, as well as STJ Advisors Group as an equity adviser to provide consulting services for the planned IPO. Previously, Hidroelectrica signed Lazard, STJ and Deloitte as consultants in the process of preparing the company’s initial public offering (IPO) on the stock exchange.
