PM Victor Ponta attended the first day of the international listing of the state-owned gas producer, alongside with Xavier Rolet, CEO LSE. A similar floatation also took place at Bucharest Stock Exchange. Hidroelectrica and Electrica will follow next year.
Romgaz shares were listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) and transactions with deposit certificates (GDR), marked SNGR, were initiated on the London stock market.
Prime Minister Victor Ponta opened Tuesday’s trading session of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), on the first day of Romgaz listing.
‘This is an historic moment for my country. It is for the first time that a state-owned company is being listed in such an international operation. I do not conceal my satisfaction for the successful IPO (initial public offering) and I would like to congratulate Romgaz and the other involved players, Goldman (Sachs International), for this complex and difficult operation’, Ponta said in an address after the opening of the London Stock Exchange trading. According to a government communiqué, the prime minister announced that other Romanian companies will follow after Romgaz listing, next year. ‘After this success story we must look forward and we will return to London next year with (hydro-power producer) Hidroelectrica, (energy distributor) Electrica and other Romanian public companies. And I hope by this we send a powerful and important message to the international companies, namely that Romania is showing openness towards the world and can use a potential it has not used up until now’, Ponta stressed.
Xavier Rolet, CEO London Stock Exchange said that he was honored that LSE hosts the first Romanian privatization by international listing. ‘Romania has a special role in our hearts,’ he said. Rolet congratulated Romgaz and the other companies involved in the listing and voiced conviction that other operations of this kind would follow in partnership with the Romanian companies.
According to Mirel Palada, the Cabinet’s spokesman, the listing of shares in Romania’s leading natural gas producer with LSE, in the PM’s presence, is a highly positive signal of Romania to the capital markets as well as a historic moment, given that this is the first time that Romania is on the radar of global institutional investors with such an attractive offering, Agerpres informs. He added that the Romgaz listing is a highly successful transaction also because it is about a price that was in the upper brackets.
Success on BVB
On the other hand, BVB reported a record liquidity rate on the first day when Romgaz shares were traded in Bucharest, with transactions exceeding RON 41 million (over EUR 9 million) 35 minutes after the transaction was opened, according to Mediafax. Transactions with the gas producer’s shares amounted to RON 35.3 million. In mid-session, Romgaz shares were traded at RON 34.28, 14.27 percent above the offer price and 17.8 percent and 20.3 percent, respectively, above the prices at which retail investors purchased shares with a 3 percent and 5 percent discount. Most of the bonds included in the offer were sold for RON 30/share and investors who received discounts (for subscriptions of no more than 10,000 shares) purchased the bonds at RON 28.5 and RON 29.1, respectively. Participants at the Romgaz public offer recorded earnings of 13 to 26 percent in the first day of transactions on BVB.
Meeting with investors interested in business opportunities in Romania
Also, PM Ponta participated yesterday, in London, in a roundtable with financial advisors and investors interested in business opportunities in Romania, the Executive’s Press Office informs. Companies that had representatives at the meeting with Prime Minister Victor Ponta are: City of London Investment Management, Property Fund, Bank of New York, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Societe Generale, UniCredit, Wood & Co., CMS Cameron McKenna, Romgaz Deal.
Romgaz, targets new perimeters of hydrocarbons
Romgaz is preparing to participate in the next round of oil block concessions the National Agency for Mineral Resources (ANRM) will be organizing next year, company deputy general manager Dumitru Rotar declared yesterday at the opening of Romgaz trading on BVB. Until then, the company will continue the development of mature fields as well as the revamping of these blocks, and will also go for deeper drilling. ANRM will put up for tender next year 36 oil blocks, including eight Black Sea offshore blocks. The latest tender for the concession for the exploration and exploitation of oil blocks took place in 2010.
NIS Petrol: Gazprom has future plans in Romania
In turn, Vadim Smirnov, the Managing Director for Romania of NIS Petrol, the Serbian division of Gazprom Neft said for Agerpres, that the Russian giant has great plans for the future in Romania and in the Balkan region, both as regards the crude production and the marketing of fuels at its own-brand petrol stations.
He said NIS plans to become a very serious player in the Balkans and it is to this end that it enters several local markets, Romania included. Smirnov stressed this is the most important project, given the size of Romania, its population and oil traditions.
NIS is interested in fresh concessions in Romania and it will closely examine the sites that the Romanian National Agency for Mineral Resources will put to auction next year. The Serbian division is not interested in Black Sea concessions, since it does not own the required technology, but parent company Gazprom has such an expertise available and it might be interested in the new maritime sites, he added.
As regards fuel marketing, the company plans to bring oil products refined at the Serbian-based processing units, next year, which might mean the petrol and diesel in Gazprom stations could become one of the cheapest in the market. NIS is currently purchasing fuel from OMV and other companies in the market in order to sell it in its own petrol stations.