French power giant Electricite de France S.A. will buy GDF Suez S.A. (GSZ.FR) out of the two companies' joint blocking minority stake in regional Austrian utility Energie Steiermark AG, reports Austrian daily Der Standard Thursday.
The deal, which is worth around EUR80 million, is to be signed Friday in Paris, Der Standard writes, citing unnamed insider sources.
The newspaper reports EDF intends to divest the entire 25% plus one share stake once GDF has been bought out. Formally, the stake is now held by Societe d'Investissement en Austriche, a 50-50 joint venture between EDF and GDF.
Spokespeople of Electricite de France, or EDF, and GDF weren't immediately available for comments.
In 2007, EDF and GDF moved to up their involvement in Energie Steiermark to 49% plus on share, but the EUR400 million deal was blocked by a majority in the parliament of the province of Styria, which controls the remaining shares.
Der Standard names Austria's largest power producer and grid operator Verbund AG (VER.VI) as a potential buyer of the French stake in Energie Steiermark, but a Verbund spokeswoman told Dow Jones Newswires that such a stake buy currently "isn't a theme for us".