Cahora Bassa prepares public offering of shares

MAPUTO. — The Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Company (HCB) yesterday launched a tender to find a partner in the operation to float 7,5 percent of its shares on the Mozambican Stock Exchange.

The company will select a “leading financial inter-mediation entity to provide services related to the organisation, registration, authorization, publicity, launch and execution of the public offering of shares of HCB,” the company said in a statement.

The public offering, which was announced by President Filipe Nyusi on November 27 last year, has not yet been scheduled.

In a press release yesterday, the company said the process was intended to “contribute to the promotion of the economic inclusion of Mozambicans, as well as to the consolidation of HCB’s credibility with the main national and international stakeholders in the project, focusing on financial institutions, as it demonstrates the openness and willingness of the company to adhere to internationally accepted good practices of corporate governance and to permanent public scrutiny”.

Located on the Zambezi River in the Tete province, central Mozambique, the dam is the largest in Southern Africa.

Construction started in 1969 and the facility came into operation in 1977.

HCB is 85 percent owned by the Mozambican state, after it closed a reversion agreement with Portugal in 2007.

A reversion in property law is a future interest that is retained by the grantor after the conveyance of an estate of a lesser quantum that he has (such as the owner of a fee simple granting a life estate or a leasehold estate).

Once the lesser estate comes to an end (the lease expires or the life estate tenant dies), the property automatically reverts (hence reversion) back to the grantor.

In addition to supplying the Mozambique market, HCB supplies electricity to several countries in Southern Africa. — New Ziana.