* Firm confirms plan to cut investment spend
* Gives no figure, detail on scope of cuts
* Follows press report cuts could be over $5 bln
* Will look to invest 330 bln crowns in 2010-15 - paper
(Updates with company quotes, analyst, details)
PRAGUE, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Czech power group CEZ <>
confirmed it planned to cut investment spend as it slows foreign
expansion, after a local newspaper report put the potential cuts
at over $5 billion.
Newspaper Lidove Noviny said on Thursday, citing an unnamed
source, that CEZ aimed to cut up to 100 billion crowns ($5.2
billion) from its investment plans over the next five years.
CEZ spokesman Ladislav Kriz declined to comment on the
figures, but said the company was looking to make savings and
that the Czech Republic would be a spending priority.
"The previous plan, before the (economic) crisis and before
the price of electricity dropped, was working with different
figures," Kriz said. "We are reacting to it and we have to
adjust our plans... As far as expansion is concerned, the
priority will be the Czech Republic."
CEZ, central Europe's largest power group with market
capitalisation of $24 billion, has refocused on its domestic
market this year while adjusting to lower power prices and
tougher financing conditions after the downturn.
Lidove Noviny reported that CEZ planned capital expenses of
350-370 billion crowns by 2015, down from a previous plan for
430 billion, according to a 2010-2015 business plan the company
is finalising.
The paper cited another source as saying the company would
try to lower the final figure to 330 billion crowns.
CEZ has assets in Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria,
Turkey, Albania and other countries. It has been a fixture in
power assets tenders in past years but typically takes a
conservative approach to bidding.
"The savings could be viewed positively provided the
company's expansion is not jeopardized, (meaning) if the planned
savings concern planned projects or aim at improving
effectiveness," Atlantik FT analyst Milan Vanicek said.
CEZ decided this month against bidding in a tender for a 83
percent stake in Polish utility Energa. []
Majority state-owned CEZ is running the Czech Republic's
largest-ever power sector tender, which will last several years
and could be worth up to an estimated $25 billion.
It plans to build two units at its Temelin nuclear power
plant, and possibly three more at another domestic site and in
Slovakia.
($1=19.33 Czech Crown)
(Reporting by Jan Korselt; editing by Simon Jessop)
