Prague - ČEZ, a Czech state-owned energy giant, finished the second quarter of this year with a profit of CZK 6.72bil (EUR 276mil), which means a sharp drop of 40 percent compared to a year earlier.
ČEZ shares in the Prague stock exchange declined 3 percent Monday, as investors reacted to the data which were significantly below the estimates of experts.
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The data were originally expected to be released on Tuesday 16 August before the opening of the Prague stock exchange. Strangely, a part of the figures were released already on Monday by Reuters. The company in which the Czech state has 70 percent share reacted by releasing the full report later on Monday, one day before originally planned.
Analysts expected the company's profit to drop only to CZK 8.52bil (EUR 350mil). It is believed that lower electricity prices and an unfavorable CZK-EUR exchange rate were the main driving forces behind the acutal drop.
Difficult goal: CZK 40bil
However, the company slightly improved its profit outlook for 2011. The net profit is expected to reach CZK 40.6bil (EUR 1.7bil), a slightly more than previously estimated CZK 40.1bil. Nonetheless, this would still mean a 13 percent decrease compared to the 2010 profits.
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So far it is not clear how the Q2 profits report was leaked to media. "ČEZ is investigating how did this situation (the unauthorized release) happen," said the company in reaction to the preliminary publication of the Q2 profit data by Reuters.
This is not the first leakage of ČEZ profit numbers. In February 2010, the ČEZ spokesman attached the company's financial results to an e-mail invitation for the company's annual general meeting.
