Regional energy behemoth EPH of Czech oligarch Daniel Křetínský has signed an agreement with Italy's Enel Group to acquire its 50% stake in their joint venture Slovak Power Holding, bringing EPH's overall share in Slovakia’s main power company Slovenské elektrárne (SE) to 66%.

The move to buy Enel's stake gives EPH effective control of SE, though the government retains a 34% blocking minority stake. The total consideration for Enel's shares in SPH was euro150mn, which EPH already paid when it entered SE by buying the initial 50% stake in the venture in 2016.

“SE perfectly complements EPH’s generation portfolio, being a zero-emission electricity producer,” a member of EPH’s board of directors Jan Špringl stated in a press release shared with bne IntelliNews.   

“From a management perspective, our focus remains unchanged; our priority now is completing the fourth unit of the Mochovce nuclear power plant,” Špringl also stated.

EPH highlighted that “ the agreement formalises the option for EPH to acquire the stake under the early call option, introduced in 2020 as part of amendments to the original contract signed in 2015”.

The press release also notes that “EPH will guarantee repayment of credit facilities provided by the Enel Group to SE prior to the transactions closing” and that these “total up to €970mn along with unpaid accrued interest” of €158mn as of end of this November.    

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025 and is subject to regulatory provisions.

As bne IntelliNews reported in August, the transaction is to mark Enel's exit from Slovakia after almost 20 years, during which it has rowed with the government and struggled to modernise the formerly state-owned utility.

Křetínský has forged close links with populist Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer party, under whose previous governments it reached the SE deal and also took over Eustream in 2013, which runs the Slovak section of the Druzhba [Friendship] pipeline that brings Russian gas to Europe.

The agreement also comes as Fico’s current cabinet announced plans to launch a new nuclear tender. The new nuclear reactor would be located at the existing Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear power plant (NPP) site, which already has two reactors, and is projected to cost €10bn, according to the cabinet plans.

“Construction work should commence in April of 2032, the first shipping of the fuel early in 2038 and launching of test operations also in 2038,” Minister of Economy Denisa Saková (Hlas) said at a press conference on November 20.

Saková is now holding intensive talks with Russian Gazprom and its boss, Alexei Miller, over the continuation of Russian gas flow into Central Europe.

SE is the largest electricity producer in Slovakia and generated a total of 21.66 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023. The net electricity supply from SE amounted to 19.57 terawatt-hours in 2023, EPH highlighted in a press release, adding that after shutting down the last coal-fired power plant in Vojany in 1Q this year, SE now produces electricity entirely from carbon-free sources.