SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 7 (SeeNews) – The Independent Bulgarian Energy Exchange (IBEX) said its net profit rose to 1.2 million levs ($709,000/613,500 euro) in the first nine months of the year from 674,000 levs in the like period of 2016.
The company’s operating revenue increased to 421.0 million levs in the January-September period compared to 99.9 million levs in the comparable period of last year, IBEX said in its Q3 2017 financial report posted on the website of the finance ministry.
Expenses for the purchase of electricity rose to 418.5 million levs in the review period, from 98.3 million levs the year before.
Last week, Bulgaria’s competition regulator allowed the acquisition of the Independent Bulgarian Energy Exchange (IBEX) by the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) as the deal falls outside the scope of its regulatory competences.
In September, the BSE said its shareholders approved the acquisition as well as a proposal to finance it through proceeds from the sale of government securities which the BSE owns.
In August, the BSE said it had reached an agreement with state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) to acquire the IBEX for 5.2 million levs ($3.1 million/2.7 million euro).
The BSE will make an initial down payment of 4 million levs, while the remaining 1.2 million levs will be paid in three equal semi-annual instalments, it said at the time.
The transfer of ownership of IBEX was requested by the European Commission in December 2015 to prevent abuse of dominant position. BEH, which pools state-owned energy assets, committed to offer certain volumes of electricity on an independently-operated day-ahead market on a newly-created power exchange and transfer ownership of the new power exchange to the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance.
Under the Commission’s decision, dated December 12, 2015, BEH was given six months from the date of formal notification of the decision to transfer the ownership of IBEX’s capital to the Ministry of Finance.
Subsequently, following BEH’s request for opinion, the European Commission said that the BSE is a more appropriate buyer of IBEX than the Ministry of Finance and the deadline for transferring ownership was extended to October 2017.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)