Chapter 812 Power Group
The current United Energy Group has multiple businesses including oil and gas extraction, natural gas transmission and storage (British Gas Company), and power generation and power distribution (British Power Distribution Company).
Their subsidiary British Gas Company previously entered the French natural gas market through the acquisition of Total Gas Infrastructure (TIGF), a subsidiary of France's Total Energy - TIGF was acquired by British Gas Company Later, it became their branch in France and currently occupies approximately 20% of the French natural gas storage and transmission market.
If United Energy Group’s entry into the French market through the acquisition of TIGF is not too large, then this purchase of shares in Enel is a very large investment.
Because Enel SpA can be said to be a giant company, it ranked fourth among power companies in the Fortune Global 500 list announced last year, and is the only power company in Europe. The second largest power company after EDF, its current market value is as high as US$50 billion!
Based on the current market value alone, its 32% stake held by Rheinland Energy Group is worth more than $16 billion!
What's more, in order to complete this acquisition, United Energy Group will inevitably need to pay a certain premium - for a monopoly power company like Enel, every share transaction will It's a high-profile event.
In order to complete this acquisition, United Energy Group will issue corporate bonds with a total value of US$10 billion to its major shareholders, and will use nearly US$10 billion from its own profits to pay for this acquisition. funds.
Of course, most of the corporate bonds they issue will be purchased by funds under the DS Group.
After all, this time they have made huge profits from the European sovereign debt crisis and the previous short-selling actions in Japan and South Korea, and now they need to invest these profits in the acquisition of high-quality assets.
This is why, as the chairman of API Petroleum Group, Ugo is so enthusiastic about Barron.
After all, API Petroleum Group is not among the best among Italian domestic oil companies, and its scale is incomparable with that of Enel - Enel is the third largest company in Italy, only Second to ENI and UniCredit...
Even Fiat Group, owned by John Elkann, Beatrice’s second brother-in-law, has a market value much higher than API Petroleum Group...< br>
After all, Fiat Group is the 7th largest company in Italy, with a market value of about US$13.5 billion!
The main business of API Petroleum Group is the manufacturing and sales of petroleum products. They have a wide range of gas stations in Italy and also have their own crude oil smelting plants. They are downstream enterprises in the petroleum industry.
Prior to this, API Petroleum Group also cooperated with United Energy Group. They purchased part of their refined oil and crude oil from United Energy Group.
United Energy Group has also established some gas stations in Ireland, England and France through acquisitions and new construction, thereby controlling part of the downstream sales.
But at present, these are still not the main industrial directions of United Energy Group.
In fact, this time United Energy Group’s acquisition of shares in Enel was not as simple as it seemed on the surface, just to obtain shares in this company.
Currently among the shareholders of Enel, the Italian government holds the largest share. They hold 32.4% of the shares, which is only slightly higher than the 32% held by Rheinland Energy Group. .
But even with this gap of only 0.4% of shares, Rheinland Energy Group has never been able to bridge it - any increase in their shareholding ratio on this basis requires the consent of the Italian government. It is obvious that the Italian government will not give up its controlling stake in Enel, which is why Rheinland Energy Group finally gave up and prepared to sell these shares.
The British Power Distribution Company, a subsidiary of United Energy Group, in addition to owning distribution networks and related power stations in Ireland and the UK, also owns British Energy, the main nuclear power plant operator in the UK. In addition to 40% of the group's shares, British Power Distribution also owns power stations and distribution networks in Australia and Southeast Asia.
It can be said that the British Power Distribution Company has become one of the largest power companies in the UK. After United Energy Group completes the acquisition of 32% of the shares of Enel, it will try to persuade the Italian government to The merger of the power distribution company and Enel of Italy will create a power group with operations in many European countries, as well as Australia and Southeast Asia. It will surpass EDF in one fell swoop and become the largest power group in Europe.
I believe that Italy will still be interested in this proposal, even if the Italian government will lose its controlling stake in the company by then.
But after all, we are now in the period of the European debt crisis, and the situation in Italy is probably not much better...
The current Prime Minister of Italy is still Silvio Berlusconi, but Barron knows that he will He resigned as prime minister in November this year.
The reason is that Italy’s sovereign debt crisis has intensified. Faced with a severe economic crisis, Berlusconi was unable to properly respond and eventually resigned.
At that time, Italian bond interest rates soared to 7.5%, leaving Italy unable to repay its debts, and also pulling countries such as Spain and Portugal and even the entire euro zone into crisis.
It is now July, and there are only a few months away from that time. I believe that by that time, not to mention agreeing to the merger of the two power groups, even if it is the sale of the government-owned Enel, Shares are not unacceptable to the Italian government, which is in urgent need of funds...
"In fact, in addition to the Italian power company, the Italian natural gas company and some Italian banks are assets that can be acquired..."
Before coming to Italy, Barron had an affair with Daisy. After a relevant conversation, he said at that time:
“We are in Italy There are also related short-selling actions. Buying when the stock prices of some companies are low will turn our profits into real assets."
England-France-Italy-Germany, these will be. It is the core part of Europe, and will also be the focus of some of the industries it controls.
After controlling this area and then spreading to other countries, it will be able to get twice the result with half the effort.
(End of this chapter)