AFK Sistema not planning to sell Bashkirenergo grid assets
MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) - AFK Sistema is not at this time planning to sell the electric grid assets of OJSC Bashkirenergo .
"We're not planning to sell, we're planning to develop. We believe it could be interesting for us," Sistema President Mikhail Shamolin told the press. Further details on that development will be forthcoming after strategy is approved, he added.
Bashkirenergo is now being reorganized to divide it by business type - grid and generating assets (sales was separated off earlier and sold to OJSC RusHydro , which operates the majority of Russia's hydroelectric power plants). Plans call for the division of non-core assets between Sistema (the controlling shareholder) and OJSC Inter RAO UES (which holds a blocking stake) - with Sistema swapping its stake in generation for the state holding's in grids.
"There will be an additional cash payment by Inter RAO," Shamolin said, without specifying a figure. The details of the deal will be put to bed and confirmed by the parties during a month's time, he said.
AFK Sistema subsidiary OJSC Sistema-Invest owns 47.87% of Bashkirenergo charter capital (50.17% of ordinary shares) and Inter RAO 23.73% (24.87%).
Down the road, Inter RAO plans to integrate Bashkortostan generation into a generating company based around Inter RAO-Elektrogeneratisia that will also include wholesale gencos OGK-1 and OGK-3 , which the holding controls.
Earlier, Bashkirenergo was in negotiations over the transfer of its trunk electricity grids to OJSC Federal Grid Company UES (FGC) . At issue was FGC getting assets in exchange for its 21.27% stock interest in Bashkirenergo. However, FGC ended up passing the stake on to Inter RAO, which was in the process of consolidating sector assets.