The Secondary Public Offer of Transgaz, ready by the end of April

The sale on the stock exchange of a 15% stake in the shares of the national gas carrier, Transgaz SA, will take place by the end of April, the General manager of the Office For The State's Interests and Industrial Privatization (OPSPI), Gabriel Dumitraşcu, said.

He said that by the end of February, also included in the prospectus will be the audited financial results for the company for the year 2012. The head of the OPSPI also said that, in the immediate future, the price at which the shares will be sold and the discount will be established together with the underwriter of the secondary public offering.

At the end of last year, the government and the presidency have decided to postpone the Secondary Public Offer of Transgaz. Stock market sources are saying that the reason for the postponement was the far too low price for the offer proposed by the underwriter. The offer is underwritten by brokerage firms Raiffeisen Capital&Investment, Wood&Company Financial Services and BT Securities.

The government has made a commitment to the International Monetary Fund to sell stakes in several companies on the stock market, including a 15% stake of the shares of Transgaz. The operation was initially scheduled for the end of June, but it has been postponed for technical reasons.

Transgaz Mediaş is controlled by the state, through the Ministry of the Economy. The company was listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in 2008, following an IPO conducted at the end of 2007. The government holds 73.51% of the shares of the company. The shareholder structure of Transgaz also includes the Proprietatea Fund, which holds 14.98% of the shares, and the remaining 11.5% of the shares are owned by various investors.