ScottishPower makes history

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated:

 

Utilities group ScottishPower today entered the history books as it completed the regulatory process of its £3.86 billion takeover of America's PacifiCorp. Completion of the deal marks the first large takeover of a US utility by a British power company, shortly to be followed by National Grid's £2.33 billion deals for two American groups.

The ScottishPower deal was completed almost a year after it was first announced, as the two companies faced a raft of US regulatory hurdles.

Shares in the combined group, which will retain the Scottish Power name and Glasgow base, started trading on the London Stock Exchange this morning.

Ian Robinson, chairman of ScottishPower, said: 'We will now focus on the task of integrating the two companies to ensure that we deliver benefits to customers and returns for shareholders.' Mr Robinson, head of New Labour's New Deal taskforce in Scotland, said he believed the successful utilities of the future would be those big enough to achieve economies of scale.

Completion had been expected today following clearance from regulators in Utah, the sixth and final state to approve the merger.

The deal creates one of the world's top 10 electricity companies and will see ScottishPower take on PacifiCorp's 1.4 million customers on the US west coast.

ScottishPower already supplies one-in-five British families.

America's energy industry is seen as at least five years behind the UK in terms of competition and British utilities see it as ripe for consolidation.

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