Greece has accepted a 535 million euro offer from a consortium led by Italy’s Snam for a majority stake in gas grid operator DESFA, naming it the “preferred investor”, its privatization agency said on Thursday, as reported by Reuters.
“With our partners Enagas and Fluxys we have built a strong European industrial consortium with the aim of further developing DESFA, the Greek market, the Energy Union and the entire energy system of Mediterranean Europe,” Snam’s Chief Executive Marco Alvera said in a statement. Strategically-placed, Greece could represent an important crossroads for the diversification of supplies and new natural gas routes in Europe, the consortium said. It anticipated the transaction would be finalized in the second half of 2018 after securing approvals, including antitrust clearance.
The sale of a majority stake in DESFA is mandated under Greece’s latest international financial bailout, worth up to 86 billion euros. It was forced to re-launch the sale process for 66 percent stake in DESFA last year after a previous 400-million-euro deal with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR fell through in 2016.
A consortium of Snan, Spain’s Enagas Internacional and Belgium’s Fluxys and another consortium of Spain’s Regasificadora del Noroeste, Romania’s Transgaz and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) bid for DESFA in February. Athens had requested both suitors to improve their bids and after unsealing their new offers on Monday, it asked the Snam-led consortium, the highest bidder, to further improve its offer.
DESFA runs a network for transporting gas from the Greek-Bulgarian and Greek-Turkish borders via a 1,459-km (907-mile) pipeline. It also has a liquefied gas terminal facility on an islet off Athens. Strategically-placed, Greece could represent an important crossroads for the diversification of supplies and new natural gas routes in Europe, the consortium said. It anticipated the transaction would be finalized in the second half of 2018 after securing approvals, including antitrust clearance.
Last year, DESFA reported revenues of 170 million euros and a net profit of 34 million euros. Its fixed assets are valued approximately 1.3 billion euros.