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E.ON Energie and EBRD cooperate in the Slovak energy sector
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and E.ON Energie are signing an agreement for the sale of a nine per cent stake in the western Slovak electricity distribution company Zapadoslovenska energetika (ZSE), a.s., purchased by the EBRD from the German minority shareholder E.ON Energie. E.ON Energie acquired a 49-per cent stake in ZSE in September 2002 and later invited the EBRD to co-invest in the Slovak power distributor.
Dr. Johannes Teyssen, Chief Executive of E.ON Energie, said that for his company “the decision to cooperate with the EBRD - the first co-investment with the Bank and the first time that E.ON Energie has invited a financial investor to join a transaction - opens the door to further joint efforts in future.”
The Bank’s investment forms part of the larger restructuring of the Slovak energy sector, as Noreen Doyle, EBRD First Vice President, pointed out. “It demonstrates our commitment to cooperate with strong private investors in the restructuring, privatisation and liberalisation of the energy sector,” she said. The EBRD especially welcomes the opportunity to work with a partner as experienced and committed as E.ON Energie.
ZSE, based in the capital city of Bratislava, is the Slovak Republic’s western regional and by far largest electricity distribution company. It has 965,000 customers and reported sales of
€ 468 million in 2002. E.ON Energie supplies 5 Million customers in Central East Europe. Teyssen emphasized, “we are proud to be an investor in the Slovak Republic, Hungary and the Czech Republic. We are confident, that our good relations with our partners in these countries will grow even stronger in the future.”
With sales of €18.6 billion and 45,000 employees in 2002 Munich-based E.ON Energie AG is Europe’s largest private electricity and gas enterprise with approximately 25 million costumers.
The EBRD, owned by 60 governments and two intergovernmental institutions, aims to foster the transition from centrally planned to market economies in central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Bank has signed total commitments of more than €1 billion in the Slovak Republic.
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