Poland's PGE does not rule out further share issues

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's PGE expects to receive money from its planned share issue by the end of the first half of 2022 and does not rule out further issuance after its coal assets spinoff, the company's chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday.

On Tuesday the company said it was planning to raise around 3.2 billion zlotys ($801.78 million) from a share issue in order to speed up its investments in renewables, decarbonisation and distribution.

Poland generates most of its electricity from coal and was the only European Union member not to commit to climate neutrality by 2050 when the bloc set the target in 2019. But the country plans to increase its share of emissions-free nuclear and renewable energy generation.

"We hope to receive these funds in the first half of the year," Wojciech Dabrowski told Reuters, adding that the issue will take place only if all the shares are acquired by investors.

"We do not rule out further (share) issues in the future after the spinoff of the coal assets. Today we made this decision to speed up the transformation, but also to obtain funding for offshore," he also said.

Last year Poland announced its plans to take over the coal assets owned by its utilities, except from hard coal mines, and then transfer them to a new state-owned company with the takeover to be completed in the second or third quarter of 2022.

PGE's shares were down on Wednesday morning loosing as much as around 10%. At 1033 GMT shares were down by 4.6%.

($1 = 3.9911 zlotys)

(Reporting by Anna Koper; Editing by Louise Heavens)