News - Economy

Centrica will acquire a 20 per cent. interest in British Energy, the operator of eight existing nuclear power stations of which EDF acquired control in January 2009. EDF and Centrica will also form an 80/20 joint venture to pursue a planned programme to build four new nuclear power stations in the UK. Finally, the EDF Group will acquire Centrica’s 51 per cent. stake in Belgian generation and supply business SPE.

It is bad for EDF that the value of the 20% is much lower than the amount they payed for British Energy. This is likely to bring down the share of EDF today, when the markets open.