Press releases pg. 58

In 2017, CEZ Group’s net income increased by 30% to CZK 19.0 billion, primarily due to a successful sale of MOL stock and an increase in electricity generation by nuclear power plants by 4 TWh. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were CZK 53.9 billion. The year-on-year decrease by 7% basically conforms to the decrease of realization prices of generated electricity. The positive effects of higher electricity generation in nuclear power plants and the benefits of new RES and ESCO acquisitions were eliminated by higher costs of emission allowances for generation from traditional sources and settlement of uninvoiced electricity in 2016.

Negotiations between CEZ and Inercom about fulfilling the contract condition took place from Tuesday March 6th and finished this Friday. The main purpose of the meetings was preparation of documents for the application to the Bulgarian anti-monopoly office (KZK). During the negotiations, representatives of Inercom also presented an official enquiry, if in the current situation there exists a possibility for the Bulgarian state to enter into the transaction.

Tonight, the Temelín Unit 1 began to produce electricity again. It was scheduled shut down for refueling from early December. The outage lasted 83 days and the energy technicians mastered it six days earlier against the schedule. Prior to achieving full power, the energy technicians are about to test the Unit at 80 percent of the rated power.

The CEZ Supervisory Board has granted consent to the sale of the Bulgarian assets to Inercom. The package contains seven companies: CEZ Bulgaria, CEZ Elektro Bulgaria, CEZ Razpredelenie, CEZ Trade Bulgaria, CEZ ICT Bulgaria, Free Energy Project Oreshetz and Bara Group. Following interest of investors in the second half of 2016, CEZ Group started the sales process, the signing of the contract is expected in a few days. Taking into account the sales price, the Group’s fourteen-year-investments in its Bulgarian operations yielded an overall positive return. The international arbitration, which CEZ initiated against the Republic of Bulgaria in July 2016, is not affected by the transaction and ČEZ continues to proceed with it.