* 2010 net profit down 9 pct to 47.2 bln crowns
* Company's guidance was 46.7 bln
* Result indicates 48 crown per share dividend-analyst
* Shares little moved after release
(Recasts with analyst expectations, possible dividend)
By Jason Hovet
PRAGUE, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Net profit at Czech power group
CEZ <> dropped 9 percent last year due to lower prices
and a weaker end to 2010 than most analysts expected.
The biggest central European listed company with a market
capitalisation of $25 billion is due to release full results,
including quarterly figures and guidance for 2011, on Monday.
It mistakenly emailed a press statement with full-year
profit figures.
Full-year profit of 47.2 billion crowns ($2.65 billion),
counted before minorities, was better than the company's last
forecast of 46.7 billion and down from a record 51.9 billion in
2009 when it locked in prices at pre-crisis levels.
But 24 analysts in a poll provided by CEZ had estimated on
average full-year profit at 48.4 billion. Reuters had not yet
run its analyst poll.
CEZ's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBTIDA) last year was 89.1 billion crowns, beating
CEZ's guidance of 88.7 billion crowns.
Ceska Sporitelna analyst Petr Bartek said the figures looked
negative due to not hitting analysts' profit expectations.
"The released numbers imply 16 percent miss on the net level
in the fourth quarter 2010, but a 2.6 percent beat on EBITDA,"
he said. "However, the guidance for 2011 to be released on
Monday will be more important."
Bartek said he expected net profit at 44.3 billion crowns
and EBITDA at 90 billion in 2011.
Shares in CEZ, central Europe's largest utility, were little
changed, trading down 0.2 percent at 825 crowns by 1401 GMT.
Atlantik FT analyst Bohumil Trampota said the results
indicated a dividend payout of 48 crowns per share after a 53
crown payment for the previous year. CEZ has a policy of paying
50-60 percent of profit in dividends.
CEZ, 69.8 percent owned by the Czech state, has cut
investment plans by a fifth over the coming years partly in
response to weaker prices, pulling out of projects abroad to
focus on the domestic market and enlarging its domestic nuclear
business.
Germany's RWE <RWEG.DE>, Europe's fifth-largest utility,
said it will cut investments and sell assets to limit the burden
of higher taxes and lower power prices that will lead to three
years of falling profits. []
(Additional reporting by Jan Korselt, writing by Jason Hovet;
Editing by Greg Mahlich and David Cowell)
