ESSEN, Germany, March 10 (Reuters) - A sale of uranium enrichment company Urenco won't happen before the second half of 2015, RWE Chief Executive Peter Terium said, adding that a disposal could even take longer than that.
RWE and peer E.ON jointly hold one third of Urenco's shares, with the Dutch and British governments each owning a third, too.
Terium said the stake in Urenco was the last major item on the company's list of disposals.
(Reuters) - Britain, Germany and the Netherlands have asked prospective buyers for their jointly-owned nuclear fuel enrichment firm Urenco to submit indicative bids by year-end, sources familiar with the process said.
The governments, which each own a third of Urenco, have agreed to test the market's appetite for the world's second-largest nuclear fuel vendor before deciding whether to kick-start a privatisation process that could fetch up to 10 billion euros ($13 billion), said the sources.
The UK Government’s plans to raise £3bn from the sale of uranium enrichment group Urenco may have hit a stumbling block after it emerged that the Dutch government is understood to have raised concerns about the sale of its stake.
The Dutch and UK governments each own a third of Urenco, one of the world’s biggest uranium enrichment companies, while Germany’s top two utilities, RWE and E.ON, own the rest.
Areva SA (AREVA), the world’s biggest supplier of nuclear fuel and services, is monitoring the planned sale of uranium enricher Urenco Ltd. and said it won’t endanger its finances to take part in a potential bid.
“We definitively monitor closely the situation,” Areva Chief Financial Officer Pierre Aubouin said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “But we wouldn’t be doing anything that would hurt our balance sheet.”
After a freighter went up in flames at the start of the month while carrying radioactive material into Hamburg's harbour, it has emerged that the German port city receives such hazardous cargo up to seven times a month.
Fire fighters said they had only narrowly been able to prevent a catastrophe on May 1st when the freighter "Atlantic Cartier" caught fire - complete with its radioactive load.
Much has been written about government plans to privatise Royal Mail in the biggest such deal since the railways were sold in the 1990s.
Yet, another large state asset has moved on to the auction block, with much less fanfare. The low-key plans to sell Britain's one-third stake in Urenco, the uranium enrichment company, for up to £3bn, in part reflects the sensitivity of its activities.
Ministers are looking to raise up to £3bn before the end of the year through the sale of the government's 33 per cent stake in Urenco, the uranium enrichment company, in one of the biggest privatisations in years.
The deal would be a relief to the Treasury, which hopes that a series of sales will put a dent in the country's towering debt. Royal Mail could also be sold this year, raising £3bn-£4bn.
HOLLAND has dropped its historic opposition to a sale of Urenco, clearing the way for a full privatisation of the state-backed nuclear fuel maker.
The sudden change of heart came after several rounds of intergovernmental talks over the future of Urenco, which is owned by the governments of Britain and Holland and two German utility companies.
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Toshiba Corp. is weighing plans to bid for Urenco, the nuclear fuel producer backed by the U.K., the Netherlands and two German energy giants, the Sunday Times reports without citing sources.
The newspaper says the Japanese industrial giant, which owns the nuclear reactor builder Westinghouse Electric, wants to bid for the business if and when it comes on the market.
Urenco, which enriches uranium for nuclear fuel, is owned by the U.K. and Dutch governments and German firms RWE A.G. and E.ON S.E., who own a third each.
(Reuters) - The new Dutch government picked ABN Amro to advise on the future of its 33 percent stake in UK-based uranium enrichment company Urenco, three people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday.
The previous government had hired Credit Suisse to examine its strategy regarding Urenco's ownership, but this mandate was not renewed after a government reshuffle in September and staff changes at the Swiss bank, one source said.
