DTEK Grids LLC on April 30, 2021 entered into an agreement for the sale and purchase of 24.5% of shares in PJSC Kirovohradoblenergo, which belongs to VS Group Management LLC from the VS Energy Group and related companies, and is considering the possibility of acquiring a controlling stake of shares of this enterprise upon approval of the relevant transaction by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.
“DTEK continues developing its electricity distribution business. The company views it as promising and important for the transformation of the Ukrainian power market,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
Currently, the VS Energy group also includes Khersonoblenergo, Zhytomyroblenergo, Rivneoblenergo and Chernivtsioblenergo. In 2019 VS Energy sold Kyivoblenergo and Odesaoblenergo to the DTEK group.
In January, VS Energy announced a compulsory squeeze-out of Kirovohradoblenergo shares from minority shareholders, following the similar actions at Khersonoblenergo and Chernivtsioblenergo. According to the document, the highest price at which the applicant or persons affiliated with him acquired the issuer’s shares over the past 12 months was UAH 1.30. The market price of the Kirovohradoblenergo shares as of December 22, 2020, set by the appraiser of FC TITAN LLC, was UAH 1.26.
The total number of Kirovohradoblenergo shares is 119.376 million.
DTEK Grids said that it plans to implement a comprehensive program for the modernization of existing assets, as well as to carry out system automation and digitalization of power grid management in Kirovohradoblenergo, DTEK Grids CEO Ivan Geliukh said. According to him, this will improve the reliability of power supply, reduce losses and improve the quality of customer service in Kropyvnytsky and Kirovohrad regions.
According to the company, today, the market for supplying electricity to customers is completely competitive, the national regulator NEURC controls the work of distribution system operators, imposing an obligation on them to unconditionally provide access to the network infrastructure to any electricity supplier. “Thus, the concentration of new assets by DTEK complies with the legislation and the right of customers to have an opportunity of choosing who they buy electricity from in the market,” DTEK Grids said.
The company is developing a business for the distribution of electricity and the operation of power grids in Kyiv city and region, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Odesa regions. Its enterprises service 5.4 million households and 150,000 enterprises.
