Trio of bids for Areva T&D division

Areva T&D sale draws acquisition bids from Alstom and Schneider Electric, GE, and Toshiba-INCJ, as Areva reviews transmission and distribution assets to fund strategy and refocus on nuclear power serving utilities and energy infrastructure.

Areva announced that it had received three binding bids for its transmission and distribution (T&D) division.

They received a joint bid from France's Alstom and Schneider Electric in exclusive talks on T&D alongside a bid from General Electric (GE) of the United States, and a joint bid from Toshiba and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ).

Areva, which later signed an ALSTOM T&D agreement in this context, is now assessing these offers.

The T&D division supplies products, systems and services dedicated to electricity transmission and distribution such as GIS projects for DEWA 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 with Alstom and Schneider considering a bid will be taken before the end of 2009.

The sale of its T&D division, later made official according to reports, 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.

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