CEZ starts divestment of its Polish assets

Prague, Sept 16 (CTK) - Czech state-controlled power utility CEZ has officially started the divestment process in Poland, looking for buyers of its five firms, including combined heat and power plants Skawina and Chorzow, CEZ said on its website today.

The sale is part of a strategy approved last year. The strategy envisages the gradual sale of selected assets in Poland and in the countries of Southeastern Europe, namely Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. CEZ wants to keep and further develop only the companies focused on modern energy services (ESCO).

After potential investors confirm their interest in the Polish assets in writing, CEZ will invite them to submit unbinding bids.

CEZ Skawina is the second largest provider of heat to Krakow. CEZ Chorzow is one of the largest heat suppliers to Katowice and other agglomerations in Silesia, CEZ said on its website.

Last year, they produced a total of 2.433 GWh of electricity and 5,366 TJ of heat.

Apart from Skawina and Chorzow, CEZ intends to sell CEZ Produkty Energetyczne Polska and CEZ Polska. The former provides supporting services in the area of energy by-products, the letter sells commodities to large customers and small businesses.

Companies OEM Energy, Metrolog and Euroklimat, which are part of the ESCO consortium of CEZ Elevion Group, are not included in the divestment process.

CEZ entered the Polish energy market in 2006 with the acquisition of power plants Skawina and Elcho (current Chorzow) from US company PSEG for Kc10.8bn.

In 2012, CEZ started to run business in wind energy in Poland. Since then, it has sold two Polish wind farm projects, Krasin and Sakowko, to investment fund KGAL, and it expects to sell its remaining four Polish wind farms by the end of this year.

In August, CEZ announced it was in exclusive talks about the sale of its Romanian assets with a bidder that had submitted the best offer.

According to Romanian newspaper Ziarul Financiar, the potential buyer is Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA), the owner of GasNet, the main gas distributor in Czechia.

CEZ CFO Martin Novak did not, however, confirm this information in an interview with CTK a week later. He only said he expected the contract to be signed by the end of this year or at the beginning of 2021.

The situation in Bulgaria is more complicated, as CEZ and Bulgarian firm Eurohold last year filed administrative lawsuits against the decision of the Bulgarian antitrust office which had blocked the sale of CEZ's local assets to Eurohold in October.

The administrative court cancelled the antitrust office's decision in July this year and the antitrust office started to deal with CEZ's plan again in late August.

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