Quebec Mulls Hydro Stake Sale
MONTREAL -- - Power utility Hydro-Quebec, one of the largest in North America, is considering selling a 10 per cent stake to its 20,000 employees to bail out its public finances, Quebec Premier Bernard Landry was quoted as saying.
"It is a hypothesis," Landry said in an interview published in the Quebec City daily newspaper Le Soleil. He said the provincial government wanted to set up "a profit-sharing scheme for the Hydro-Quebec staff."
Landry said the Canadian province would not sell more than the 10 per cent of the utility for fiscal and legal reasons. Hydro-Quebec is a provincially-owned agency.
Hydro-Quebec and the premier's office were not immediately available to comment.
Hydro-Quebec, nationalized by the Quebec government in the early 1960s, had profits of CAN$1 billion (US$658 million) in 2001 and surpassed this amount for the first nine months of 2002.
It produces electricity in Quebec, and distributes it domestically and in the northeastern US states.
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