Europe's biggest utility Enel is actively looking for mid-size acquisitions of mainly regulated assets outside Europe, with Latin America a focus, its chief executive told Reuters. "We're looking at bolt-on deals below 5 billion euros ... several opportunities are coming to market in Brazil," Francesco Starace said in an interview, adding they were mostly regulated grids.
State-controlled Enel owns a majority stake in Spanish utility Endesa and is investing in green energy and grids to tackle the crisis in traditional power generation. Italy's largest utility makes 47 percent of its core earnings from regulated network businesses, on which it plans to spend about one-third of its 14.6 billion euro growth budget.
Last year it bought Brazilian power distribution company Celg-D for about $640 million. Starace, who confirmed an interest in Dutch energy company Eneco, valued at up to 4 billion euros, reiterated his opposition to large-size deals but said the group would look at assets in Europe that came to market from any break-up.
Utilities, long known for delivering reliable investment returns, are now breaking up, selling assets and eyeing mergers to cope with shrinking profitability. Starace said Enel had recently been offered German energy group Innogy but had turned it down because it did not see any clear growth potential.
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