Six steps to DESFA sale completion, expected towards end of year

The sale agreement for DESFA, the natural gas grid operator, is expected to be completed towards the end of the year, pundits believe, enabling the international tender’s winning bidder – a consortium comprised of Italy’s Snam, Spain’s Enagás Internacional and Belgium’s Fluxys – to take control of a 66 percent stake acquired for 535 million euros.

Until then, six steps are needed. The first of these was taken yesterday at an ELPE (Hellenic Petroleum) meeting, during which company shareholders approved the firm’s 35 percent stake of DESFA contributed to the sale. TAIPED, the state privatization fund, offered the other 31 percent on behalf of the Greek State.

The second step will entail the submission of the sale’s dossier to Greece’s Court of Auditors with all documents translated into Greek. This step is expected to be taken within May, sources informed. The Court of Auditors should offer its approval in June or July, which would enable the deal to be finalized by the end of December.

Then, for the third step, a share purchase agreement (SPA) needs to be signed by the buying consortium and TAIPED. This will be immediately followed by RAE (Regulatory Authority for Energy) certification of DESFA with the new owners on board. The certification process will essentially provide RAE with the opportunity to inspect the incoming consortium’s members for any irregularities.

This part of the overall process should be completed swiftly. It proved more complicated in the recent sale of a 24 percent of IPTO, the power grid operator, to China’s SGCC, as the incoming strategic investor was a non-EU firm.

The fifth step, once the new-look DESFA has been certified by RAE, will involve submitting the sale’s dossier to the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition and Directorate General for Energy. The former will need to endorse the sale and the latter must provide certification.

Once these five steps have been taken, TAIPED and the three-member consortium will be able to sign a finalized agreement for the transfer of a 66 percent stake of DESFA to the strategic investors and a concurrent payment of 535 million euros to TAIPED.

As all three consortium members are European firms, the overall process is expected to proceed swiftly, pundits anticipate.

The DESFA board will not be permitted to contact the buyers and inform on any company activities until the sale has been completed.