A BE Deal at Last?
The great on-off British Energy sale saga has lurched back into life with rumors that Centrica will agree to take a 25% stake in the company, thereby enabling EdF to raise the total bid to £12bn. Although Centrica’s involvement will mean some British ownership of BE, the prospect of majority control by a French company is still raising nationalistic passions in some areas of the UK media. Here’s The Independent’s Jeremy Warner:
If this were France, the sale would have been wholly to Centrica, however low the price, so as to preserve the national integrity of the assets. Yet these days, money speaks louder than any strategic considerations the Government might have. So instead, it must settle for Centrica’s minority participation.
An alternative theory might be that the British government knows that new nuclear power stations will be deeply unpopular with the electorate and that having a French scapegoat at hand to blame for any problems will be very convenient.