E&Y plans Transelectrica's business

National electricity carrier Transelectrica has chosen Ernst & Young as consultant for improving its 2004-2014 business plan, a contract worth 40,000 euros, general manager Jean Constantinescu told Ziarul Financiar. Transelectrica had received bids from Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers, two companies included in the Big Four. “Ernst & Young will actually be making the first major revisions of Transelectrica’s business plan for 2004-2014. The first long-term business plan was devised by German consulting company Fichtner for 2000-2010,” Jean Constantinescu explains. Enlisting an internationally renowned consultant’s help for drafting the business plan will improve Transelectrica’s chances of getting rating upgrades from international rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, Transelectrica’s officials say. The business plan will entail running all operations for long-term, with several parameters such as the number of employees, the trend of the operating expenses, the investment programme and the revenue scheduling taken into account. Transelectrica is now carrying out a massive investment programme to upgrade its electrical power transport infrastructure, as well as the its electrical stations and plans to enter telephony market this year. So far, it has fuelled its investments with foreign loans from commercial banks or international financial institutions like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or the World Bank, or with its own resources and with money from the energy system development fund. ZF