June 9 (SeeNews) - The Romanian government said it has approved the sale of 1% stake in oil and gas group OMV Petrom [BSE:SNP] to former employees of the company by the end of next year.
In its decree, the government is complying with a High Court of Cassation and Justice ruling from 2019, which required the state to sell up to 8% of the shares in OMV Petrom to employees, government spokesman Dan Carbunaru said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
The sale will involve 382,103,818 shares representing 0.999% of the 3.821 billion lei ($827 million /773 million euro) share capital of the oil and gas group registered on July 23, 2004.
According to the decree published on the government's website, the shares will be sold to people who were employees of Petrom at the time of the company's privatization in 2004, at the price of 0.2158 lei per share paid at that time by Austria's OMV Aktiengesellschaft.
The unsold shares will remain property of the Romanian state. The former employees of the company will be banned from selling the shares they will acquire in the transaction for a period of 1 year, starting from the date of transfer of ownership.
OMV Aktiengesellschaft holds a 51.011% stake in OMV Petrom. The Romanian economy ministry owns 20.639%, while 28.35% is the free float on the Bucharest bourse and the London Stock Exchange.
Shares in blue-chip OMV Petrom traded 0.11% lower at 0.4595 lei by 1054 CET on the BVB on Thursday.
(1 euro=4.9456 lei)
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