Content area
Full text
Two of Europe's largest energy companies, Eni SpA of Italy and lectricit de France, placed a bold bet Friday, June 28, in the increasingly competitive German gas sector, snapping up 62.22% of Germany's fourth-largest gas distributor, Gasversorgung Sueddeutschland, or GVS, Friday from the state of Baden-Wrttemberg and municipalities for euro 450 million ($444 million).
Eni and EdF subsidiary EnBW Energie Baden-Wrttemberg AG edged out rival bids from Charlotte, N.C.-based natural gas company Duke Energy Corp. and Germany's BASF AG gas unit Wintershall AG with an offer that values the whole of the Stuttgart-based distributor at euro 720 million. The price was low, said Hypovereinsbank AG utilities analyst Susanne Schneemayer, but GVS is in trouble.
"GVS' current business model has no real future," she said. "So it depends on what EnBW...