Interfax has reported that a municipal court in Svitlovodsk, Kirovohrad region, has prohibited the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Stock Exchange (UICSE) from conducting the privatization auction of Poltavaoblenergo (POON), which had been scheduled for May 14. The case was initiated by two citizens from Poltava.
Lvivoblenergo (LVON) is the next state company slated to be privatized, scheduled for May 15. The State Property Fund (SPF), headed by BYuT-loyal Andriy Portnov whose legitimacy as SPF head is questionable, calculated the initial price for LVON’s 27% stake at $110 mln, implying an unjustifiably high price of $2.1 per share. We expect that the LVON sale will also be delayed.
The UICSE chairman of the board said that the SPF can reschedule POON’s auction to next week. However, we believe that the court order halting POON’s privatization is a signal that all six DisCo privatizations will be stopped. We rank the news as NEUTRAL since we had considered the suspension of DisCo privatizations the most likely scenario.

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