With this operation RWE will able to serve 5

Financial crisis or not, the mergers and acquisitions are well underway in the energy sector. After the resumption of British Energy by EDF, it is the turn of the Germanic giant RWE to launch the biggest operation of its existence. The number two German energy yesterday announced the purchase of the Dutch group Essent for EUR 9.3 billion. Amount relatively high since, in the fall, some experts assessed Essent to about 6 billion euros. Entirely carried out in cash, the transaction includes the resumption of 1.1 billion euros of debt and does include the distribution system or waste of Essent activity. It will be funded by a credit of EUR 9 billion. A performance by the times like these, even if RWE did not achieved rates.

For the German group, the announcement marks a historical shift. It is the culmination of a strategy initiated a year and a half, at the time of the arrival of Jurgen Grossmann at the head of the company. At the time, the shareholders of the electrician blamed his predecessor his reluctance to external growth operations and requested a change of course to reflect the consolidation of the sector.

It is now made thing. In competition with the Swedish Vatenfall and a consortium including the ENI Italian and Danish Dong, RWE did not hesitate to put in the pot to take the last. The Group clearly found taste for large manoeuvres, leading him to multiply the purchases in the years 2001-2002.

With this operation, RWE will able to serve 5.3 million new customers, mainly in the Netherlands but also Belgium (250,000 client) and Germany (1 million customers). It will also enable the group, based in Essen, Ruhr, diversify its fleet of production by integrating wind, hydraulic power stations and biomass facilities. Essent is the largest producer of green electricity to the Netherlands. Its intensity CO2 per kilowatt-hour is 40 lower than that of RWE, one of the first polluters in Europe with its coal and lignite plants.

Selling to the German giant, Essent has, for its part, end to 10 years of independence. The Dutch group was born of the consolidation of two regional electricity companies in 1999. Main supplier of gas and electricity of the Kingdom, Essent has achieved a turnover of EUR 6.6 billion in 2008, down 10.8 over the previous year, by virtue of the demerger of its activities imposed by the Hague.

The company has a recycling activity and is present on the international market energy via trading operations.

Entirely in the hands of public authorities, Essent is now 100 owned by local communities. To the sides of the province of North-Brabant, which is its main shareholder (31 of capital), the territorial communities of Overijssel and the Limburg respectively held 19 and 16 of Essent.

The fate of the Group tipped with the liberalisation of the sector imposed by Brussels. It is translated to Netherlands by a law requiring companies to split their operating activities of the network of those commercial. To compensate for this lack to win and to resist competition, Essent and number two Dutch Nuon sought a reconciliation in 2007. But they were unable to agree on the terms of the distribution of capital in the new unit, and the merger was finally overturned. Since then, Essent announced be looking for a new partner.