The World Bank Ensures ENEL

Behind the price obtained for the selling of the Electrica subsidiaries, Banat and Dobrogea, there is a limit type warranty, given by the World Bank to cover the "regulation risk".

The promised warranty to the buyer ENEL values 60 million U.S. dollars and it is for five years. "We talk about the privatization of a natural monopole and, in the next months, there are to be made a few detail adjustments in order to be in accordance with the European legislation", explained Dan Ioan Popescu, the Minister of Economy and Commerce. The main details aim at the granting contract, the annex to the property transfer and the award of the working license.

INCREASES. Though the director of the State’s Allotments and Privatization for the Industry Bureau (SAPIB), Dorin Mucea classifies the warranty as moral, it costs 5 million U.S. dollars which are to be recovered by the increase of the tariffs. The French consultant from the Romanian side, Herv Hascoit, director at BNP Paribas, presented the warranty as one of the key arguments for which the Italians accepted to increase the price from 50 euros per consumer to 223 euros per consumer (including the debts valuing 98 million euros), during the quite "tough" negotiations.

On the other hand, sources close to the transaction said that this is "a classical political risk warranty", without which the lack of trust in the legislative stability of Romania would’ve decreased the selling price. The property transfer should end by "the 29th of November, 7 o’clock in the morning", according to Dan Ioan Popescu.