Only a miracle will make the Hidroelectrica privatization take place this year, responded Fondul Proprietatea’s manager, Greg Konieczny, to an energynomics.ro question.

Changes to the interim Supervisory Board require the appointment of executive staff, which will be followed in four months by new changes to the Council and new executive appointments, and this will take another three to six months, which will delay the privatization process, Konieczny explained .

“The appointment of a provisional council is a setback… it delays the listing of the company,” Konieczny said.

At the same time, FP, which owns 20% of the company, and government representatives, are still discussing various options of possible privatization without reaching a conclusion.

“We would not want to do it like in Electrica’s case, where the money stayed in the company and the shares fell,” Konieczny explained.

He claims that Hidroelectrica currently has funds that probably exceed 2.5 billion lei, and shareholders will need to be “extremely careful about the decisions of the new management.”

At the same time, Konieczny told energynomics.ro that FP will receive from state-owned companies a dividend distribution worth about between one and two billion lei, according to the new decisions to distribute 90% of the profits to shareholders.

Autor: Bogdan Tudorache

Active in the economic and business press for the past 26 years, Bogdan graduated Law and then attended intensive courses in Economics and Business English. He went up to the position of editor-in-chief since 2006 and has provided management and editorial policy for numerous economic publications dedicated especially to the community of foreign investors in Romania. From 2003 to 2013 he was active mainly in the financial-banking sector. He started freelancing for Energynomics in 2013, notable for his advanced knowledge of markets, business communities and a mature editorial style, both in Romanian and English.