Translated material
"Today is booming"
At the sale of energy sales assets, there was competition only for the Nizhny Novgorod company
RAO UES of Russia continues to sell energy sales assets. However, there is practically no significant activity at the auction : of the five auctions held this week, only one had competition - for the sale of 49% of the shares of the Nizhny Novgorod Sales Company. It was sold to the alliance of Transneftservice S and Integrated Energy Systems (IES) for 2.05 billion rubles. ($79 million) with a starting price of 750 million rubles. ($29 million). Market participants are perplexed as to why they had to pay so much for this asset, if even according to the winners themselves, it will pay off no sooner than in ten years. General Director of Transneftservice S Stanislav Ananyev commented on the purchase price: “The company is expensive. But life is such that it’s difficult to say what the real cost is.”Yesterday was the second day (on Monday they sold 49% of the shares of Kubanenergosbyt at a starting price of 850 million rubles) of a three-day marathon on the sale of energy sales subsidiaries of RAO. Moreover, for one day the auction was opened to the press. But this “damn” turned out to be lumpy for RAO. Journalists involuntarily compared the auctions with the sale of YUKOS assets, and the comparison was far from in favor of RAO: the auctioneer was in a hurry, apologized in advance for the incorrectly stated amounts, the signs were visible only to the one who raised them, and only occasionally to the rest of those present. In general, in the hall one could freely approach the participants and talk to them, which some of those present did.
Participants in the electricity market predicted failure of yesterday's auctions, as they considered the starting price to be greatly inflated. However, as announced at the beginning of the auction, there were from three to five bidders for each asset. But they were, apparently, nominal. Four auctions lasted about 15 minutes, and three of them - for the sale of 49% of the shares of Sverdlovenergosbyt, 49% of the shares of the Kuzbass Energy Sales Company and 100% of the shares of Orenburgenergosbyt - lasted no more than a minute each, since no one could beat the starting price didn't. The lot for the sale of the Sverdlovsk company went to the company representing the interests of IES, Center Region Invest, for 1.15 billion rubles. ($44.4 million), she also received the lot for the sale of the Orenburg company for 1.11 billion rubles. ($42.8 billion). By the way, one of the consumers of Orenburgenergosbyt is Rusenergosbyt (yesterday it also participated in auctions), owned 51% by entrepreneur Grigory Berezkin and his associates, and 49% by Italian Enel. As the press service of Rusenergosbyt stated, they buy energy “to supply Russian Railways sub-subscribers, and this situation will last until 2008.”
Kuzbass company for 1.14 billion rubles. ($44 million) was bought by Mechel-Energo, which won yesterday's auction and completed the construction of a vertically integrated energy structure - it owns coal mines in the Kemerovo region and recently acquired the Yuzhno-Kuzbass hydroelectric power station. Taking into account Mechel's 1.2% stake in the energy sales company, its share was increased yesterday to 50.2% of the shares.
The battle unfolded over only 49% of the shares of the Nizhny Novgorod Sales Company - a certain company "Kit" and "Transneftservice S" were trading, as a result of which the latter became the winner. But, as its general director Stanislav Ananyev said, in reality the asset was purchased in an alliance with IES (owns and manages the energy assets of Viktor Vekselberg) on a parity basis. He attributed the company of competitors to the SIBUR group, but it stated that it had nothing to do with “Kit”. Vremya Novostey's source in the energy market believes that behind the competitors of Transneftservice S is the structure of top managers of the Federal Grid Company.
RAO management has been repeating in recent days that the starting price of auctions is de facto the market valuation of the assets being sold. Therefore, it is absolutely incomprehensible why it is necessary to buy 49% of the shares of the Nizhny Novgorod Sales Company at exorbitant prices. “Moreover, this company can bring in at most $5 million a year,” says the owner of one of the energy sales companies. But Mr. Ananyev claims that this company is key to his business, and with its help he plans to increase the volume of electricity sales from the current 24 million to 50-60 million kWh. At the same time, he says, the Nizhny Novgorod Sales Company is exempt from power supplies big business - i.e. does not depend on financial and industrial groups, and therefore is very attractive. Answering a question from Vremya Novostey about what, in this case, attracts Transneftservice S to the company: work with the population, Nizhny Novgorod enterprises or something else, Mr. Ananyev said: “Today is a boom. You know, there are different segments - the generation segment, the networks segment and the sales segment. The sales segment has certain interests and certain opportunities. We understand them for ourselves. I would not like to detail them now, because this is a question... not exactly commercial information, but this is, as they say, personal preference. We currently work in 36 regions, we have extensive experience in relationships with counterparties, and for ourselves we understand the value of companies. The main risks are those of the executive branch.”