Deputy Portfolio Manager of the investment fund Fondul Proprietatea Daniel Naftali said that the listing of Hidroelectrica should also be done on an international stock exchange, in addition to the initial public offering (IPO) on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, similar to the listings of Romgaz and Electrica.
Naftali said that FP considers it very important that, in addition to being listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, Hidroelectrica be listed on an international stock exchange. Such listing will accelerate the transition of the Romanian capital market to an emerging market, thus attracting investors on the Romanian capital market in a Romanian company.
Last month, Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said that 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. He 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.
