Ljubljana, 05 April (STA) - A sale of postal company Pošta Slovenije and insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav is no longer off limits in line with a draft of a new state investment management strategy drawn up by the Finance Ministry and obtained by the STA. More protection is meanwhile envisaged for Telekom Slovenije, designated in 2013 as a portfolio investment but never sold.
An update of the existing strategy, adopted in 2015 and considered outdated, the ministry's draft keeps in place the three-tier categorisation featuring strategic, important and portfolio investments.
Deemed as strategic investments are those which, in addition to their economic objectives, are also meant to help the state achieve its strategic objectives. The minimum state share in these investments, mostly involving the energy and transport sectors, is 50% plus one share or one vote.
With important investments, where the state shareholding is envisaged at a minimum of 25% and one share or vote, activities are market-based, but the idea is to keep their main development elements within the country. State asset custodian SSH meanwhile has free reign when it comes to portfolio investments.
The list of companies remaining in the strategic investment segment in the proposed update includes electricity distribution companies, power producers Gen Energija and HSE, the electricity market operator Borzen, motorway company DARS, port operator Luka Koper, railways operator Slovenske železnice, infrastructure corporation DRI, air traffic control company Slovenia Control, the SID investment bank and Loterija Slovenije.
Also not for sale, but in the domain of the government as opposed to the SSH, are companies like 2TDK, which managed the construction of the new rail track to the Koper port, national grid operator ELES, the Lipica stud farm, the STA, the pension fund management KAD fund and SSH itself.
Telekom Slovenije, put in 2013 on a list of companies slated for privatisation and considered a portfolio investment, has meanwhile been upgraded to an important investment and is are the company of Istrabenz Turizem, pharma company Krka, publisher Mladinska knjiga, the NLB bank, energy trader Petrol, insurers Sava and Savar Re, as well as, notably, Pošta Slovenije and insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav.
The last two have been relegated from strategic status and the newspaper Večer reported today that trade unions, which have been provided with access to the draft, have expressed discontent over this.
They highlight the wider importance of the two companies and the fact that they employ over 7,000 people together. The trade unions speak of bad experiences with the sale of state investments in recent years, speculating a sale may be in the pipeline.
The Finance Ministry told Večer that the two companies do not meet the criteria for the top status. The reason stated for Pošta is that it is not designated by law for the execution of a public service. As for Zavarovalnica Triglav, the information is that the draft strategy envisages strategic status only for the 34.5% stake held by public pension fund manager ZPIZ and no longer for the 28% share held by SSH.
Meanwhile, the list of companies relegated from important to portfolio status includes printing company Cetis, chemical company Cinkarna Celje, Slovenia's largest gas wholesaler Geoplin, the steel group SIJ, and spa operator Terme Olimia.
The list of portfolio investment moreover features the likes of gaming company HIT, the MLM foundry, spa operator Termana, tools maker Unior and, notably, aluminium producer Talum. The latter's status plummeted from strategic to portfolio.
The revamped strategy comes about a year later than originally announced by the incumbent government and following a number of major changes since the 2015 strategy. Among them was the absorption of the BAMC bad bank which by SSH at the end of 2022, which also brought several companies under the auspices of SSH.
Of the 104 companies listed in the 2015 strategy, 29 have been sold for what the draft strategy says were EUR 1.6 billion in total. The data shows that despite these sales the book value of the state's shareholdings fell only by EUR 400 million after 2015 to EUR 11.2 billion at the end of 2022, with a low point of EUR 9.9 billion in 2020.
From 2015 to 2022, the state and SSH also received EUR 1.7 billion in dividends, mostly from companies in the financial sector.
The return on equity was 4.7% in 2015, rising to 6.9% in 2019, before falling back to 4.3% in 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis, and after an intermediate rise in 2021, slipping to just 2.8% in 2022 due to the energy crisis. SSH again projected a significant improvement for 2023.
