November 18 (SeeNews) - Montenegro's government said it will buy back the stake of 3.2% owned by Italy's A2A in state-controlled power utility Elektroprivreda Crne Gore (EPCG) [MNG:EPCG] for 17.1 million euro ($18.9 million) by the end of 2019.
The plan is part of an earlier agreement for the exit of A2A from EPCG signed by Montenegro and the Italian company, the government said in a statement on Friday.
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It plans to buy back A2A's stake in two tranches - a total of 3,202,845 EPCG shares will be purchased from A2A for 14.33 million euro by November 30 and the remaining 636,793 shares will be bought for 2.85 million euro by December 31, 2019.
In addition, the government said it has authorised the economy ministry to agree with the remaining EPCG shareholders the distribution of the company's retained profit as dividend by December 15 at the latest, based on which the state budget will receive no less than 37.4 million euro.
The government's stake in EPCG has risen to 85.4% from 57.1% following the activation of a July 2017 put option agreement, under which the government pledged to repurchase the shareholding interest of the Italian company in EPCG.
EPCG itself controls 10% of its share capital, followed by A2A with 3.2%. The remainder is owned by smaller shareholders.
EPCG shares closed 1.98% higher at 3.69 euro on the Montenegro Stock Exchange on Monday, below the stock's nominal value of 6.52 euro.
($=0.904067 euro)