Reports noted that Electricité de France was close to buying the British Energy Group, Britain’s country’s largest producer of nuclear power, for as much as £12 billion ($24 billion) to get control of its eight nuclear plants. The takeover would end five months of discussions about the future of British Energy, of which the government owned 35.8 percent. The company supplied about 17 percent of Britain’s electricity.

The acquisition would put Électricité de France, the world’s biggest provider of nuclear power, closer to its goal of building 10 nuclear plants by 2020 at a time when the power source had become more attractive. British regulators in January had approved plans to refurbish the country’s nuclear reactors, a move that made the utilities a more attractive investment for foreign companies1.

• 1. “British Energy said to be near sale to French Rival,” The New York Times, July 26, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/business/worldbusiness/26energy.html?_...