* Misses Q4 net profit estimate on one-offs
* Surpasses 2009 guidance on net, EBITDA; sets lower 2010
* Books half of 2011 capacity at price a touch up from 2010
* Shares flat
(Adds CEO comment, analyst, contract prices)
By Jan Korselt and Jason Hovet
PRAGUE, Feb 26 (Reuters) - CEZ <> said profit would
fall in 2010 as the downturn fully hits the Czech power group,
after it posted a 39 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit due
to fixing electricity prices before the market fell.
CEZ, central Europe's biggest company with a $24 billion
market capitalisation, beat its guidance for full-year 2009
results, but forecast a 10 percent net profit drop and 3 percent
decline in EBITDA this year, echoing other European utilities.
"The financial crisis will affect CEZ fully this year... and
we will not be able to repeat last year's record results," CEZ
Chief Executive Martin Roman said.
European utilities expect little profit growth this year. On
Thursday, Europe's fifth-largest utility RWE <RWEG.DE> cut its
earnings targets for the years through 2012. []
The company benefitted from higher prices in forward power
sales before the economic downturn hit power prices and demand.
CEZ said it had felt the drop in power prices in its 2010
contracts and booked half of its 2011 capacity at an average
price a touch higher than this year. []
Analysts said this might indicate that lower profits could
hit a bottom in 2010, a year earlier than many had expected.
"It will depend on how the rest of the year develops, but if
prices rebound it is possible that CEZ will have higher profit
in 2011," Komercni Banka analyst Josef Nemy said.
"This would be good news as I and others in the market
counted on profits bottoming out in 2011."
CEZ shares cut nearly 1 percent losses to trade flat at 856
crowns by 1313 GMT, versus a 0.5 percent drop in the Prague
index <>.
HIT BY CHARGES
CEZ reported a 7.83 billion crown ($407 million)
fourth-quarter net attributable profit, below the 9.00 billion
forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts. []
Margins rose and it had a better valuation on its minority
stake in Hungarian oil group MOL <MOLB.BU>. Profit also was
lifted by inclusion of Germany's Mibrag mines, bought this year.
But it booked a 3 billion crown charge related to the
methodology of reporting unbilled electricity charges and wrote
off 3.3 billion crowns on investments in its Polish plants.
For the full-year, profit before minorities rose 9.5 percent
to a record 51.9 billion crowns.
CEZ plans to boost production this year, mainly at nuclear
plants, after it fell 3.3 percent last year. The company expects
consumption to recover 1 percent this year, though not enough to
compensate for falling prices.
Its shares are up 25 percent in the past 12 months, lagging
a 75 percent gain by Prague's main index. They trade at 9.4
times estimated earnings, compared to 11.0 for the average of
companies in the DJ Stoxx utilities index <.SX6P>.
(Editing by Dan Lalor and Jon Loades-Carter)
($1 = 19.22 Czech crowns)
