Liberalisation of energy market: DEPA privatisation
(Article by Mira Todorovic Symeonides – Partner and Kosmas Karanikolas – Associate, published in the Energy & Natural Resources Newsletter of the ILO on January 20, 2020)
Introduction
On 3 December 2019 Law 4643/2019 on the liberalisation of the energy market, the modernisation
of the Public Power Corporation, the privatisation of the Public Natural Gas Company (DEPA) and
the support of renewable energy sources was published in the Official Journal (A’ 193/2019).
Under the new law, DEPA will be spun-off into three distinct undertakings, two of which will be
completely privatised. This transformation will significantly alter DEPA’s unbundling and
privatisation scheme, which was adopted under Law 4602/2019 on 9 March 2019 (ie, before the
elections and respective reconfigurations in Parliament and government).
Spin-offs
The first significant change concerns two DEPA spin-offs: DEPA Infrastructure and DEPA
Commercial. DEPA’s infrastructure branch will be spun-off to form DEPA Infrastructure, while
DEPA’s international projects branch will be spun-off to form DEPA International Projects. DEPA’s
remaining assets and projects will be retained by DEPA and renamed DEPA Commercial.
Privatisation
The second important change concerns the degree of DEPA’s privatisation, as all DEPA Commercial
and DEPA Infrastructure shares are owned by the Greek state and will be placed on the market. To
this end, the Greek state transfers its participation in the aforementioned undertakings to the
Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF). After the restructuring, HRADF will hold 65%
of the total shares in DEPA Commercial and Hellenic Petroleum (HELPE) will hold the remaining
35%.
Moreover, the obligation imposed by Law 4602/2019 on DEPA Commercial’s major shareholder to
conclude an agreement with the state conferring the latter’s right to exercise a veto on strategic
policy decisions has been abolished, appeasing concerns that such a privilege would impair
investors’ ability to exercise their commercial policy.
On the other hand, to counterbalance the disposal of all of the state’s participation in DEPA
Infrastructure’s share capital and with a view to attracting long-term investors that will undertake
and finance modernisation, gas distribution network infrastructure will be developed and expanded
and the non-transfer of shares for five years has been set as a prerequisite.
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