Swiss Capital and BT Securities will intermediate the listing of Nuclearelectrica on the BSE

The consortium made up of Swiss Capital and BT Securities won the call for bids held by Nuclearelectrica to underwrite the listing of the shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), stock market sources told us. The race to intermediate the listing of the company has also included the Intercapital Invest - Wood&Company (Czech Republic).

The listing of Nuclearelectrica, stipulated in the agreement with the IMF and approved by the government in January, involves the sale of a 10% stake in the company, following a share capital increase.

The deeds in the offer will be issued as part of a share capital increase by 11.07%, and the government will waive its right of pre-emption to allow investors to buy stock in the company. The Proprietatea Fund currently holds 9.72% of Nuclearelectrica and can avoid dilution by subscribing 1.077% of the newly issued shares.

On September 28th, Nuclearelectrica received tenders from the two consortiums to intermediate the offer for listing the energy producer on the stock market. If the shares were sold at the price at which the Proprietatea Fund values its stake in Nuclearelectrica, the value of the IPO by which the state is looking to sell 10% of the shares of the energy maker would be 500 - 510 million lei.

The Proprietatea Fund holds 9.72% of the shares of Nuclearelectrica, a stake which is valued at nearly 500 million lei, according to the bi-annual financial statement of the Proprietatea Fund, quoted by Mediafax.

The Swiss Capital - BT Securities consortium is being helped by brokerage firm Auerbach Grayson&Company, its foreign partner, which can sell the shares in the IPO on the foreign markets. Auerbach Grayson&Company specializes in emerging and frontier markets and trades in over 130 global markets, and mostly works with American investment funds. The company works with exclusive partners in the markets where it has active clients, and in Romania it cooperates with Swiss Capital, the largest local broker.

Czech brokerage firm Wood&Company is a partner of BT Securities in the Transgaz offer, and Swiss Capital participated together with Intercapital Invest in the Transelectrica offer. Swiss Capital is currently working on the Tarom IPO.

Intercapital Invest was part of the consortium which intermediated the secondary offer by which the government sold 15% of its shares in Transelectrica. The company is also involved in the sale offers which the state will perform for Romgaz and Hidroelectrica.

In the beginning, the selection of the intermediary was supposed to take place in May, but at the time, the process was halted due to the wariness of the brokers. The procedures were resumed at the end of July, when the deadline for submitting tenders was set for September 10th, and it was then postponed for September 28th.

Under these circumstances, the listing may take place in Q1 2013, according to the latest estimates, which means the initial deadline would be missed by three months.

According to some stock market sources, very few intermediaries were interested in participating in the selection, because they disagreed with some of the provisions in the tender book. The sale of shares in Nuclearelectrica is also made more difficult by the reluctance of institutional investors to invest in nuclear energy.