OMV made €4.1 bln four years after Petrom takeover

OMV spent €1.5 bln to take over the Petrom oil giant in 2004, both for direct stock acquisitions and share capital increase. Profits amounted to €1.836 billion in 2005, 2006 and 2007, while the first quarter of 2008 brought €234 million. The 51 percent stake owned by OMV in Petrom is currently worth €3.606 bln.

Petrom is listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB). Its market value is some €7 bln, with a 2006 peak, when it reached €10 bln, exceeding the value of its Austrian owner.

Petrom is undergoing the most ample restructuring process in Eastern Europe. The company’s ratio in Romania’s economy exceeds 3 percent.

The net profit of former state-owned Petrom has boomed in the past four years, to €532.7 million last year, and a scheduled profit of €1.9 mln per day. Meanwhile, personnel was been reduced by half.

“Petrom’s development strategy until 2010 was launched in 2005 and was based on a very detailed analysis of processes for all operations and proceedings,” OMV President, Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, told Business Standard. With a €3 billion budget for the new development strategy, the target is to turn Petrom into the largest intregrated gas and oil company in Southeastern Europe by 2010, he added.