Elektroprivreda announced a new call for the sale of its own shares at a price 15 percent lower than the offer on the previous call, to which no bidder responded.
The new price per share is 7,33 euros, while the previous one was 8,63 euros.
This means that the entire package of 11,8 million shares or 10 percent of the company is offered for 87 million euros. Ownership of 10 percent of shares would also mean a seat on the board of directors of a state-owned company.
The deadline for submitting offers is 10:12 a.m. on August XNUMX.
EPCG acquired these shares on September 26, 2019, when part of the shares previously held by the Italian company A52,8A was paid with the company's money of 2 million euros.
For this money, EPCG then received ownership of 11,8 million of its shares. According to the Companies Act, a company can own its own shares for a maximum of three years and must sell or cancel them before the expiration of that period, and the deadline expires on September 26 of this year.
If the shares are not sold by that deadline, the company will have to cancel them, which would affect the reduction of the capital by 77 million euros. Given that there are now eight days from the announcement of the invitation to the deadline for submission of bids, there is enough time for the invitation to be announced a third time if there are no bidders even now.
The nominal value of the share is 6,5 euros, but now they are worth around 3,5 euros on the Montenegro Stock Exchange. The last time they were bought at a price of over seven euros was during the period of the so-called economic boom, before the 2009 crisis. They had the highest value of 11,3 euros in April 2007.
The company is now operating stably, and last year it made a net profit of 47 million euros due to the export of excess electricity at high prices. Now it is in trouble because, due to the drought and low production from hydroelectric plants, it has to import significant amounts of electricity estimated at 100 million euros for July, August and September.
According to the conditions of the public call, energy companies with an installed capacity of at least one thousand megawatts (MW) or with a basic capital of at least 500 million euros, as well as investment funds that are listed on the organized capital market, have a positive financial result in the last three years, had the right to participate. , capital of at least one billion euros and investment in the energy sector of at least 100 million in the last five years.
After the failure of the first call, the President of the EPCG Board of Directors, Milutin Đukanović, said that the option of canceling shares and thereby reducing the company's capital should be avoided.
He then said that he wanted to recall some, as he said, very malicious comments present in part of the public, which highlighted the alleged intention of the company's management to, beyond their powers, sell or secretly donate the specified fund of shares to the Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS).
"I appreciate that it would be desirable if individuals, prone to such interventions, would try to enrich their knowledge through familiarization with legal norms and, if possible, make a difference between their own political orientation and professional attitude towards issues from the domain of the economy, specifically those that related to the operations of EPCG", said Đukanović.
According to "Vijesti" information, EPS was not even interested in the purchase at that time.
During the previous public call, EPCG received only one serious investor who was interviewed, and that was the company "Shanghai Electric Power", the majority owner of the "Možura" wind park and which is mentioned in the corruption scandal of the same name in Malta, which is also being investigated by the Montenegrin prosecutor's office. GK
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