VS Energy Says No Plan to Sell Oblenergos.

VS Energy (VSE), the holding group headed by Russian MP Alexander Babakov, said it has no plans to sell its stakes in eight regional electricity distribution companies (Oblenergos). VSE’s local director suggested the group’s talks with CEZ (Czech Republic) had broken off, saying “if we had been offered a good price we would have been stupid not to consider it”. He said VSE valued its Oblenergo holdings at $700-900m. Alexander Paraschiy: VSE confirmed our opinion (see our note of Feb. 10, 2006) that the group is unlikely to sell its energy assets in the near future. Planned tariff reforms and clearing of Oblenergo’s debts will increase their values over the next 1-2 years, so it would make more sense to sell Oblenergos then.