Romanian Petrom SA has become the most valuable petroleum company on the stock markets in the Central and Eastern European region, leaving its Polish or Hungarian "peers" behind.
Petrom's value on the Bucharest Stock Exchange rose by more than 2.5bn euros in one month to a total of 5.59bn euros. The company, which is currently in OMV's portfolio, was worth no more than 1.27bn euros a year ago today, that is 4.5 times less than it is now, which indicates a spectacular "surge", a rather hard thing to come by on any stock market in this world. Petrom's shares last closed at 3,880 ROL (10 eurocents).
A substantial capital increase from OMV and an euro losing ground against the ROL have seen to it that Romania's biggest petroleum company managed to attain a higher market value than other petroleum companies whose business volume is 2 or 3 times higher, are much more profitable and vying for supremacy on the regional market, like MOL (Hungary) or PKN Orlen (Poland).
For comparative purposes, the capitalisation of MOL in Budapest is 5.08bn euros, with the company last trading for 46.85 euros (11,620 forints). PKN Orlen's capitalisation on the Warsaw Bourse is of only 3.58bn euros and has last traded for 8.37 euros (34.5 zlotys). The only petroleum company in the region whose capitalisation is higher is Petrom's new owner itself. Austria's OMV is worth more than 6.7bn euros on the Vienna Bourse, trading at 223.85 euros.
Actually, Petrom and OMV's value is now going up due the freshly raised capital from shareholders in December 2004, when both of them performed capital increases.
The analysts, however, believe there is still room for growth where Petrom is concerned, given that investor expectations in this case are higher compared with other companies in the region.
"At a first glance, it looks like Petrom's shares have room to grow. It is quite difficult to compare companies on the Romanian market against those on the other Eastern European markets because conditions vary. Romanian banks were said to be among the most overvalued in the region six months ago and still they have grown quite a lot since then. Foreign investors believe the growth gradient is higher on the Romanian market and therefore developments are expected to be more dynamic," said Dragos Neacsu, Raiffeisen Capital & Investment chairman.
The acquisition of Petrom by OMV is now taking effect on the stock markets, as the deal was only concluded three weeks ago.
The entry of the Austrians as Petrom shareholders boosted the size of both companies and modified their respective shareholding structures.
On the one hand, Petrom benefited from an 830 million-euro capital inflow from OMV, which added to its own share capital. This way it took the Austrians a 1.5bn-euro total effort to get hold of 51% in Petrom.
On the other hand, the Romanian company was not an easy bite to swallow for OMV, which, in order to refinance its acquisition and find cash for its expansion in the region increased its own capital from 27 million to 30 million shares, by issuing new shares. This meant raising cash from shareholders on the Vienna Bourse, given that OMV's main shareholders, the Austrian State and the Abu Dhabi-based petroleum investment fund IPIC did not take part in it.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro
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