A consortium led by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) has won a bid to buy the British arm of French electricity provider EDF for more than US$9 billion, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday.
The agreement to buy EDF Energy is worth £5.8 billion pounds (US$9.05 billion dollars) and will be the biggest acquisition in Britain by a Hong Kong entity, it quoted a source close to the deal as saying.
The consortium includes Li’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (長江基建集團), Hongkong Electric Holdings (香港電燈集團) and the Li Ka Shing Foundation.
It beat out rival bids from Scottish & Southern Energy and a consortium comprising the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Macquarie Capital and Canada Pension Plan, the source said.
EDF Energy, the largest electricity supplier in Britain, is owned by EDF (Electricite de France), which said in October last year it had put its three distribution grids up for sale as it tries to reduce its debts.
The French state owns 85 percent of EDF, which operates France’s 58 nuclear reactors, the world’s biggest network of atomic power plants.
The deal is Li’s fifth purchase in Britain and comes as he tries to increase his ownership of lucrative utilities overseas in a bid to broaden his earnings base due to difficulties in expanding in Hong Kong. He also has interests in New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Trading in Cheung Kong Infrastructure and Hongkong Electric was suspended in Hong Kong yesterday pending an official announcement. With a fortune of US$21.3 billion, Li is the world’s 16th richest person, according to an annual Forbes magazine ranking in November last year.
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