January 10, 2005
ROMANIA: Petrom Most Valuable Petroleum Company on SE Europe Bourses
Romanian Petrom SA has become the most valuable petroleum company on the stock markets in the Central and Eastern European region, leaving its Polish or Hungarian "peers" behind.
Petrom's value on the Bucharest Stock Exchange rose by more than 2.5bn euros in one month to a total of 5.59bn euros. The company, which is currently in OMV's portfolio, was worth no more than 1.27bn euros a year ago today, that is 4.5 times less than it is now, which indicates a spectacular "surge", a rather hard thing to come by on any stock market in this world. Petrom's shares last closed at 3,880 ROL (10 eurocents).
A substantial capital increase from OMV and an euro losing ground against the ROL have seen to it that Romania's biggest petroleum company managed to attain a higher market value than other petroleum companies whose business volume is 2 or 3 times higher, are much more profitable and vying for supremacy on the regional market, like MOL (Hungary) or PKN Orlen (Poland).
For comparative purposes, the capitalisation of MOL in Budapest is 5.08bn euros, with the company last trading for 46.85 euros (11,620 forints). PKN Orlen's capitalisation on the Warsaw Bourse is of only 3.58bn euros and has last traded for 8.37 euros (34.5 zlotys). The only petroleum company in the region whose capitalisation is higher is Petrom's new owner itself. Austria 's OMV is worth more than 6.7bn euros on the Vienna Bourse, trading at 223.85 euros.
According to analysts, Petrom and OMV's value is now going up due the freshly raised capital from shareholders in December 2004, when both of them performed capital increases.