Endesa Europe chief says Italy, France, Poland priorities for expansion

Endesa SA's European general manager Jesus Olmos said in a interview in Saturday's La Repubblica that Italy, France and Poland are the Spanish group's priorities for expansion.

Olmos declined to comment on a report on Friday that Enel SpA would take a 15 pct stake in Endesa, which Enel denied, as part of a wider cooperation between Italy and Spanish energy sectors.

'As regards Italy, I can say that we look with a lot of attention at everything that moves in your country. We are ready to grow when the occasion presents itself,' he said in the interview.

Endesa sees opportunities to grow via the planned merger of AEM SpA and ASM Brescia SpA, not as a shareholder but via commercial deals, he said.

Endesa already has a generating joint venture with ASM.

The newspaper also asked if the presence of Electricite de France as a shareholder in Edison SpA, alongside AEM, raised worries.

Endesa has objected to this shareholder structure of Edison because it means that publicly-owned companies own more than 30 pct stakes in former Enel generating companies, breaching an Italian law.

This 30 pct rule was set for the auctions of several Enel generating companies in early part of this decade, in which Edison and Endesa won separate auctions for generating firms.

Endesa's Olmos said he would certainly be ready to buy any stake that AEM or EDF were required to sell in the generating company acquired by Edison, and as a result of regulatory intervention.

In comments on the LNG market, Olmos said he expects Endesa's regasification plant at Livorno in eastern Italy, to be operational in 2008.

'Endesa will be the first to inaugurate its regasification plan in 2008. The works will start by the end of the year, while Edison's works are still sequestered by magistrates,' he said.

Most reports have said Edison's plant in Rovigo, near Venice, on which works have already started, will be first to launch, though the company has said it faces environmental opposition.

In a separate interview in Saturday's Milano Finanza, Olmos said Endesa would also be interested in acquiring Eni SpA's power generating unit Enipower.
Source:forbes.com