Spanish electric group Endesa loses takeover appeal
AFP
MADRID
Petroleumworld.com 02 15 06
The
Spanish supreme court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Spanish
electricity group Endesa against the government's conditional
approval of a hostile takeover bid by Grupo Gas Natural, which
has accepted the state's conditions.
The court said it saw no reason currently to suspend the move,
and that it would hand down a definitive decision before the takeover
goes ahead.
Last week, Endesa had said it would ask the court to block the
government's conditional approval of the 22.5 billion euros (27
billion dollars) takeover, saying 20 conditions the goverment
imposed in giving the bid the green light on February 3 left the
operation "lacking in industrial logic".
In the view of Gas Natural, in contrast, "strategic advantages
from the operation are compatible with the obligations on which
the cabinet has conditioned the merger."
The deal, aimed at making a global energy group leader with more
than 30 million customers, saw Madrid indicate that the new group
would have to divest 4,300 megawatts of generation capacity and
restrict its market share in gas distribution market to 60 percent.
They cut back the scope of an initial proposal which analysts
had estimated would have created the third-biggest utility group
in the world, and the biggest electricity supplier in Spain and
in Latin America.
EU competition authorities had already cleared the deal.
AFP
02/14/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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