Trio of bids for Areva T&D division

They received a joint bid from France's Alstom and Schneider Electric, a bid from General Electric (GE) of the United States, and a joint bid from Toshiba and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ).

Areva is now assessing these offers.

The T&D division supplies products, systems and services dedicated to electricity transmission and distribution from the power plant to the final user. The division's customers are electric utilities as well as the oil, mining and metals, wind energy, paper and glass, transportation, and power engineering industries. At the end of June, Areva's supervisory board asked the executive board to put the division up for sale to partly finance the group's long-term development plan.

Areva says a final decision on whether or not to sell the division and the choice of potential buyer will be taken before the end of 2009.

The sale of its T&D division would leave Areva focused entirely on the nuclear power industry, with operations in uranium mining, conversion and enrichment; fuel design and fabrication; reactor design and construction; and decommissioning and waste disposal.