Czech govt says to sell CEZ stake at market price

...a book-building process, minister Miroslav Kalousek said on Tuesday.

The ministry has been under pressure from analysts and the media to reveal more details about the way it would sell the stake, worth about $2.1 billion.

Kalousek had so far said only that one of the agents of the state would be bank Ceska Sporitelna.

On Tuesday, he gave more details in an article in daily Mlada fronta Dnes.

"The ministry decided ... to take advantage of historically high levels of equity markets and CEZ shares, to have total control over the sale, and to sell a limited amount of shares gradually, on the basis of the current price," he wrote.

Kalousek also said the ministry could stop the process at any moment if market conditions ceased to be favourable.

He did not say if the ministry had identified any counterparties or if the shares would be offered directly to the market.

The government holds a 67.6 percent stake in CEZ. The reduction will only narrow its stake temporarily, because CEZ is simultaneously conducting an up to 10 percent share buy-back.

CEZ shares traded 0.8 percent higher at 1000 GMT at 1,076.50 crowns, near an all-time high of 1,095 set earlier this month.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]