Greece’s PPC to sell a market share together with 400,000 customers

Greece’s Public Power Company (PPC/DEH) is selling a part of its share together with 400,000 of its customers. Manolis Panagiotakis, the CEO of PPC, announced this innovative step during the Economist conference in Athens.

PPC will establish a subsidiary company that will be available for sale to private electricity suppliers competitors. The offer package will include 400,000 PPC-customers (6%-7% of the market).

“The objective is to smoothly reduce the market share of PPC which under the Memorandum of Understanding will be limited by 50% by 2020.” Today PPC’s market share is more than 90%. In this way, “any prospect of destabilizing the company and the electricity market in general will be canceled,” the CEO said.

The subsidiary for sale is expected to be ready in September. The PPC-customers for sale will be selected “in a representative manner that will include less profitable categories as well as customers with outstanding debts to PPC.”

The package will have more incentives for the buyer like “fixed wholesale market price for energy for a reasonable period.”

Panagiotakis stressed that “customers bound to PPC (Public administration, high voltage, farmers, consumers with overdue obligations) make a 55% of the market,” and therefore there is risk that the decrease of PPC’s market share may lead to loss of the profitable customers.

The CEO called for the “liberation” of PPC from the state complaining that “the state exercised social, insular, agrarian and fiscal policies.”

Panagiotakis apparently meant  that the state – see: the governments – were forcing PPC to reduce the electricity prices for specific interest groups but also vulnerable groups of the society in the middle of the economic crisis. But also charge the Extra Property Tax imposed since 2011 on electricity bills pushing into debts more and more of its customers.

When criticism, then right with self-criticism, please! The CEO  forgot to mention that the PPC was one of THE companies where party voters would be hired with exclusive salaries and benefits the rest of Greek labor force could only dream of. The PPC unionists from PASOK and New Democracy had created the most powerful union in Greece and always took and still take care the some “workers are better than others.”

Now to the other aspect of the PPC and the sale of customers. I already smell of loopholes in this plan.

Can a utility company sell a customer? In the sense that PPC unilaterally cancels its contract with the customer if he sticks to the contract Terms & Conditions which is paying bills in time? In legal terms, I am not sure it can.

Furthermore, the new private electricity providers may make special offers and prices for a certain period of time, but these offers are not attractive to all electricity consumers especially the ones with low consumption.

I made my research recently, and I found out if I move to XY-company, I will pay the same as to PPC.

Another issue is that while the PPC has a “social policy” and doe snot cut the electricity to vulnerable groups of the society (low-incomers, unemployed, people with disability over 67%). However, the private electricity companies do not have this policy.

So the PPC will sell customers with outstanding debts who are possibly not able to pay their bills to the private companies who will cut their supply in a couple of months?

And then what?

PS I will probably end up paying more for electricity than now . grrrrr