Engineering a bail-out

2 July 2003

It is hard to portray stateowned Areva’s interest in the French engineer’s disposal in any other light. The details of Areva’s bid will be scrutinised by Brussels and investors alike.

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Areva, the French stateowned nuclear power generator, on Tuesday made an offer for Alstom's power transmission and distribution business. The terms of the bid have not been disclosed, although the French newspaper Les Echos reports it is worth around E1bn.

Alstom, a French engineering conglomerate, put the business up for sale in an effort to solve a financial crisis. It said in May that it had received preliminary offers for the business, without giving further details. According to persistent market rumours, one or more private equity houses had made a preliminary bid of about E750m. An Alstom spokesman declined to say whether any such offers had lapsed.

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