Austrian power producer and grid operator Verbund AG (VER.VI) wants to sell non-core assets to create extra financial leeway in a tougher 2010 business climate, its chief executive told Dow Jones Newswires.

The company, owned to 51% by the Austrian state and the country's largest power producer, is looking to raise up to EUR150 million this year from selloffs, and more money down the line, Chief Executive Wolfgang Anzengruber said in an interview.

"We have some minority shares in other companies that would do for divestments, and a couple of wind projects we did in the past but haven't concentrated on developing," Anzengruber said.

Verbund's non-core minority stakeholdings consist mainly of interests in Austrian regional energy producers and distributors, purchased partly for historical and political reasons, but also as a step towards a planned bundling of the Austrian marketing and distribution efforts of a number of the companies in a plan called the Austrian Power Solution.

The plan was hatched around 10 years ago, but never materialized. Anzengruber said the plan was now outdated and irrevocably off the table. As a result, the assets might be put up for sale, he said.

The holdings include 35% stakes in the provincial government-controlled power companies in Styria and Carinthia , a 10% stake in Burgenland's power company and 5.8% of Upper Austria 's.

"I think in some portions we can do it," he said.

The wind power assets eligible for sale are a number of yet undeveloped wind power projects based in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, where Verbund has canceled all projects but one in order to cut capital expenditure and adjust to less profitable times ahead.

On March 2, Verbund said its 2009 net profit fell 6.2%, to EUR644.4 million, due to weaker electricity prices, and warned that a tougher price environment and higher debt expenses will cut severely into its 2010 earnings and dividend.

Anzengruber estimates Verbund's 2010 earnings before interest and tax, or EBIT, will drop 25%, or EUR250 million, from 2009, to between EUR750 million and EUR800 million.

Concerning dividends, Verbund intends to return to a payout ratio of between 45% and 50% of net profits in 2010, from around 60% in 2009, which puts Anzengruber's 2010 dividend estimate at EUR0.75 to EUR0.80 a share, down from the EUR1.25 a share proposed for 2009.

Among the scrapped projects, tbe most notable was a plan to build two gas-fired power plants along or close to the planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline, and EU-backed project set to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe by 2015.

"There were some ideas on the Nabucco side. We discussed one gas-fired power plant in Romania and also one in Slovenia , but they are clearly out of our plans now," Anzengruber said.

All in all, Verbund has shaved EUR900 million off its five-year investment program, which now allows for planned investments of up to EUR2.7 billion.

In addition to this capex program, Verbund may spend money buying extra power production and distribution capacity in France and Turkey , Anzengruber said.

In France , where Verbund holds a 46% stake in listed power producer POWEO SA (ALPWO.FR), the government has identified a string of hydropower concessions it wishes to commission in clusters in coming years, adding some 5 gigawatts to the country's generating capacity.

"That's an aspect we are definitely interested in. It will meet our competencies very well," Anzengruber said, adding that Verbund would focus on concessions for mid-sized plants in the French Alps. But it could easily be another two years before the French government is ready to open the tenders for bidding

More rapid growth might come from Turkey's efforts to privatize 45 power plants--or about a third of the country's installed power production capacity--this year. EnerJisa, Verbund's Turkish 50-50 joint venture with Sabanci Group, aims to build a generation capacity in Turkey of 5 gigawatts by 2015, or 10% of the country's total generation capacity, up from a current production of 455 megawatts, but the privatizations program might provide a convenient short cut to beefing up Verbund's presence in the country, Anzengruber said.

"It would enable us to take move faster in the direction of our target. Some of these plants are old and inefficient, but we will take a look at them, and if it makes sense we will make a decision in this direction," Anzengruber said, also flagging up the possible participation in privatization tenders for Turkish power distribution companies.

EnerJisa bought Baskent in 2009, a regional power distributor supplying 3 million people around Ankara with electricity. More buys could follow in a push to level out the risks of producing power in a closed market place, Anzengruber said.

"There could be a demand for balancing out the generation side with a larger distribution side, depending on whether the Turkish market becomes more open. If not, that could lead us to decide to do another acquisition on the distribution side," he said, pointing to the bigger cities in the western part of the country as the most viable distribution areas.

" Istanbul would be very interesting, no doubt, but that's not on the table at the moment," he said.

Turkey is privatizing its entire distribution network in stages; the next round is scheduled for the fall of 2010.

Διαβάστε ακόμα