Bear Stearns eyes gas and power in European energy push

US investment bank Bear Stearns will buy and rent transportation, transmission and storage assets as part of its push into European energy markets, although its intial focus will be on UK gas and German power market, the head of its European energy business said.
The New York-based bank on Tuesday unveiled plans for a major push into Europe's energy markets, joining a growing list of banks looking at a market which has drawn investors attracted by the recent boom in commodity markets. Investment banks are expanding in commodities and energy partly to capitalise on growth in demand for products to hedge volatile prices.
Bear Stearns has hired Etienne Amic, the global head of commodities at French rival Calyon, to head its energy business in Europe and is preparing to ramp up the operation in the coming months.
Amic, a one-time executive at French oil group Total, told Reuters that the group did not expect to grow as fast in Europe as it did in the US where it launched its energy business a year ago, but he saw several opportunities.
"Primarily, we're going to focus on gas, power and emissions ... We're going to start with UK gas and German power, the most liquid markets, and we're going to expand our capabilities across Europe," he said in an interview.
Houston-based Bear Energy manages more than 6,000 megawatts of physical power assets and employs 160 energy people in the business, with its operations now spanning US physical and financial energy markets.
Last May, it bought most of the power assets of the Williams Power Company, an energy trading and marketing subsidiary of The Williams Companies, Inc, and says it is "well positioned to become one of the largest physical energy traders" in the US
Amic said Bear Energy was looking to replicate that success in Europe, and could look at owning or renting energy assets and infrastructure on the continent.
"One of the features of Bear Energy is that we're very comfortable with the physical side of the business," he said, adding that crude oil was also "definitely part of the mandate."
"Renting transportation and transmission capacity ... power plants, renting or owning storage.... All that is typically what we do," said Amic. Amic said Bear Stearns had already hired several people as part of its European energy push who were slated to join between August and September, but declined to identify them or say how many people it would have by the end of the year.