CEZ Groups 2017 Net Profit Up 29% Year Over Year

Prague, March 18 (CTK) – Net earnings of Czech energy group CEZ increased by 29 percent yr/yr to Kc18.8bn last year, its sales staying at the 2016 level of Kc203.7bn, according to analysts polled by CTK.

 

CEZ will make public its business results for last year on Tuesday.

 

The net profit rose by 13 percent yr/yr to Kc16.6bn in the first three quarters of this year.

 

Q4 saw a profit of Kc2.2bn, analysts said. In the same year-ago period CEZ recorded a Kc0.1bn loss.

 

“Increased operation of nuclear power plants should have a positive influence of CEZ’s profitability, however, there were also negative factors, namely lower achieved prices and higher costs of carbon credit purchases,” said Komercni banka analyst Miroslav Frayer.

 

Long-term assets write-off worth Kc3.1bn, entered in the books at the end of 2016, is to blame for a big yr/yr difference in the net profit figure for the last quarter, said Frayer.

 

Ceska sporitelna analyst Petr Bartek said a one-off income from a sale of Hungary’s MOL shares and flats in Prague’s district of Pisnice is behind CEZ’s net earnings.

 

CEZ obviously managed to fix better future selling prices of electricity, said BH Securities analyst Martin Vlcek.

 

Any information on a possible split of CEZ or construction of new nuclear sources will be of key importance, he added.

 

Of the transformation options under consideration, the most preferred is the one involving separation of nuclear and conventional sources from distribution and the new energy division, CEZ said at the end of January.

 

Investors will be chiefly waiting for an outlook for this year and a statement on a proposed dividend, if CEZ makes it at all, said Fio banka analyst Jan Raska.

 

Last year, CEZ paid a Kc33 per share dividend. Most analysts envisage the same dividend from last year’s profit. Some say it may be Kc2 per share higher.

 

CEZ, the largest Czech energy company, is about 70 percent owned by the state via the Finance Ministry.