25% stake in Poltavaoblenergo to be offered for sale on July 9

The State Property Fund announced today that on July, 9 it is planning to put up for sale on the PFTS stock exchange its 25% stake in Poltavaoblenergo (UX: POON UK). Earlier, SPF head Oleksandr Ryabchenko said at a press conference that this summer SPF would try to sell its entire 25% stakes in four oblenergos (Poltavaoblenergo, Prykarpattyaoblenergo (UX: PREN UK), Sumyoblenergo (UX: SOEN UK) and Odesaoblenergo (UX: ODEN UK)), and in case of the absence of bids it would auction off smaller blocks of 1-5%. Yegor Samusenko: The SPF had been offering stakes in Poltava-, Sumy- and Prykarpattyaoblenergo as a single block on a weekly basis from May 2009 to March 2010, but bidders never showed up. Given that, we think small stake sale would take place at a new auction. We see starting prices for Poltavaoblenergo and Sumyoblenergo as attractive for institutional investors to participate, for details please refer to our note from 1 June 2010.