Sierra Quadrant has notified the City Hall of the Capital (PMB) that it had terminated negotiations on the transfer of ELCEN’s assets and business to Termoenergetica, 12 months after the municipality expressed its intention to buy ELCEN. As the PMB has failed to identify sources of financing for the acquisition of ELCEN, representatives of Sierra Quadrant, the judicial administrator of ELCEN, believe that the negotiations have been irrevocably halted and that “our joint project for the implementation of an integrated Centralized Thermal Energy Supply System (DHS) in the municipality of Bucharest has been rendered moot”.

The receiver also announced that it looked for other ways “to ensure that the risks of bankruptcy, loss of the cogeneration bonus, loss of opportunities to attract European non-reimbursable funds are eliminated”.

Throughout 2021, Mayor Nicușor Dan tried to get a loan of around 500 million euros from the government to pay a 30% advance on ELCEN’s 1.075 billion euros acquisition plus a series of outstanding bills. The mayor is also in talks with the Finance Ministry to raise the Capital’s debt ceiling, which he considers far too low for a city the size of Bucharest. “Every year, parliament approves the budget law and a ceiling law. This ceiling law sets a total amount that administrative-territorial units (UAT) can borrow and a maximum ceiling for each UAT. So, one of the solutions is to increase the ceiling for Bucharest for this purchase. But the answer lies with the Minister of Finance,” the mayor general said in a press statement.