UPDATE 2-Brazil's Eletrobras swings back to net profit in Q3
(Adds share reaction, analyst comment)
SAO PAULO, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Eletrobras on Wednesday reported a third-quarter net profit slightly ahead of estimates, swinging back to the black after a small net loss a year earlier, as it said it has managed to speed up its post-privatization "value creation strategy".
The Brazilian power company posted net income of 1.47 billion reais ($302 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, up from the 88,000-real net loss a year earlier and above the 1.44 billion estimated by analysts polled by LSEG.
Common shares of the firm, Latin America's largest utility, rose more than 2% on the news, among the top gainers on Brazil's benchmark stock index Bovespa, which was near flat.
Eletrobras, formerly a state-run company, was privatized in June of last year when the Brazilian government diluted its stake in the firm in a transaction worth more than $6 billion, making it a company with dispersed ownership.
Eletrobras said in a securities filing that the third-quarter results were driven by higher revenues in its power transmission unit, which led group net revenue up 9% in the quarter to 8.78 billion reais.
The company dubbed it a "solid quarter" and said it had managed to "speed up a value creation strategy".
Strong operational figures, stable leverage and a 14% cut in compulsory loans were the highlights of the quarter, said JPMorgan analysts led by Henrique Peretti, who rate Eletrobras as a "buy".
"We believe this set of strong operational results should highlight the positive long term positive fundamentals of the case," they wrote in a note to clients.
On top of the quarterly results, Eletrobras also said it was relaunching a voluntary redundancy program for 101 employees, adding that would provide additional cost savings of 61 million reais in the fourth quarter.
($1 = 4.8724 reais) (Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; editing by Jason Neely, Kim Coghill and Chizu Nomiyama)
