Eneco not for sale, Essent decision pending

Dutch energy company Eneco sees ‘not a single reason’ to put its energy production arm up for sale, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday.


In an interview with the paper, CEO Jeroen de Haas said he ‘fundamentally disagreed’ with the country’s biggest energy company Essent, which says a sale is the only way to survive in the European market.
‘Economies of scale are enormously over-estimated,’ the paper quoted him as saying. Last year, Eneco brought in merchant bank Kempen to advise it on potential buyers.
Noord-Brabant provincial councillors are holding a special meeting on Friday morning to decide whether to support the planned sale of Essent to Germany’s RWE for €9.3bn. The province owns over 30% of Essent and is narrowly against.
Last night it emerged that economic affairs minister Maria van der Hoeven had urged the province to delay taking a decision. She wants them to wait until legislation which forces the energy companies to split off their grid activities has been finalised.
Although the Netherlands is pressing ahead with the separation of energy supply and production, Europe has dropped plans to do so.
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