New adjustments introduced to the plan of the reform RAO UES of Russia expects to finish consolidating assets of Federal Hydropower Generating Company (FHGC) and Federal Grid Company (FGC) simultaneously with the reorganisation of the holding company itself. Industry analysts believe that the new reform scheme will allow speeding up the consolidation of the assets of FHGC and FGC. A source close to RAO UES has told Kommersant that the management of the holding company has introduced some adjustments to its reorganisation scheme. OJSC FHGC will obtain securities of all its hydropower plants which will be converted into FHGC shares, and FHGC will be spun off from RAO UES. A similar scheme is proposed for FGC. It was earlier planned to first consolidate shares of interregional grid companies with shares of interregional backbone grid companies of the centre. Now shares of both types are to be directly converted into FGC shares. This became possible thanks to a government directive obtained at the most recent meeting of the Board of Directors of RAO UES on 2 March, the Kommersant interlocutor said. The source noted that there is also a new reorganisation option being considered for OJSC System Operator Central Control Directorate (SO CCD). The government will be able to buy out the additional share issue of SO CCD for the 5.02 billion roubles allocated in the budget whereby it will raise its stock in the company to 50%, according to the new scheme. The remaining 26% of shares that are due to the state will be transferred to the balance sheet of the state-run holding company FGC, while the 24% owned by RAO UES minority shareholders will be distributed between the balance sheets of the 18 (matching the number of the companies) minority wholesale and territorial generating holding companies. The SO CCD shares allocated between the minority holding companies are to be redeemed by the non-profit-making partnership Market Council. RAO UES confirmed to Kommersant that such reorganisation options will be examined at the meeting of the board of directors of the holding company on 30 March. In saying so, RAO representatives noted that members of the holding company's Strategy and Reform Committee supported the adjustments on Tuesday. The new reform plan is convenient for FHGC which has not been acting as a single operating company so far. Trying to solve that problem, FHGC has been holding extraordinary meetings of shareholders of its subsidiary hydroelectric power plants twice already. Minority shareholders have been asked to vote in favour of leasing the generating equipment of the HPPs to FHGC. No agreement has been reached on this matter so far. Minority shareholders refuse to vote on any reform issues until their shares are converted into FHGC shares. |
