23/11/2004

Electricity distributor changes name

SOUTH MORAVIA, SOUTH BOHEMIA - Households in the bigger part of the Vysočina region and in the South Moravia and South Bohemia regions will notice a change of logo on their electricity bills as of January 1st. The Jihomoravská energetika brand will be replaced with the trademark of E.ON, the German owner of the distribution companies. However, the changes will not stop at the logo. The company structure will also change from the ground up. It was decided by shareholders' meetings of Jihomoravská and Jihočeská energetika.

Metaphorically speaking: the assets of the two regional energy industry companies will be transfused to three newly established companies, to České Budějovice based E.ON Energie, which will deal exclusively with energy trading, to Brno based E.ON Distribuce, operating in energy production and distribution and partly to service company E.ON Czech Republic, based in Prague.

"By doing this, we will comply with the requirements of the EU, which wants the fields of electricity trading and distribution to be separated by 2007. In order for the market to be able to liberalize," said E.ON Czech Holding AG chairman of the board Michael Fehn. Up to now, Jihomoravská and Jihočeská energetika have been operating in both of these fields, duplicating their activities.

The two original energy distributors will exist on paper only. Instead of them, households in the Třebíč, Žďár, Jihlava and Pelhřimov districts will be served by E.ON Energie, based in České Budějovice. "For the customers, the name of the company and the address are the only things that change," added Fehn.

However, it is still not clear how the changes will affect the current employees of the two energy distributors. In total, they have 2 700 employees. Plans are for this number to be cut by 400 within the next three years. However, Fehn says that lay-offs are not considered as an option. "We base the plans on the natural turnover of people, retirements and we also count with the fact that some employees will not be willing to relocate to another region. We have social programs in store for these employees," explained Fehn.

The negotiations that should determine how many employees are to stay are not over yet. "We are looking for an acceptable solution, we want to lose as few experts as possible in the region," said Jihomoravská energetika employees' council chairman Jaromír Dohnal. He added that they are mainly interested in the fate of controlling, marketing and accounting employees.

EXPECT CHANGES. E.ON Czech Holding AG chairman of the board Michael Fehn (left) introduced the plan to abolish the regional distributors and restructure them into a triumvirate of companies under the E.ON logo a year ago.

Source: Mladá fronta DNES