By Yeliz Candemir and Emre Peker
ISTANBUL--EnerjiSA Enerji AS, a joint-venture power generator in
Turkey, is seeking to expand its share of the country's growing
electricity market to 10% as E.ON SE (EOAN.XE), Germany's biggest
utility, takes a 50% stake in the company, said Guler Sabanci,
chairman of Haci Omer Sabanci Holding AS (SAHOL.IS), which owns the
rest of the shares.
E.ON said Monday that it swapped assets with Verbund AG
(VER.VI), giving Austria's biggest utility eight run-of-river
hydroplants along the Danube and Inn rivers in exchange for the
EnerjiSA stake.
"We see Turkey as our latest new homeland," E.ON's Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer Johannes Teyssen said Tuesday in Istanbul,
adding that the Düsseldorf-based company was expanding here
following forays into Russia and Brazil. Rising energy demand in
Turkey is a "serious potential" that creates opportunities for
E.ON, he told reporters at an EnerjiSA press conference on the
share swap.
EnerjiSA had revenues of 3.7 billion lira ($2.1 billion) in 2011
and aims to reach 10% market share by 2015. Turkey is targeting
TRY200 billion of energy investments by 2023 to meet growing demand
amid an economic expansion that has averaged 5.5% in the past
decade, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Tuesday at the EnerjiSA
press conference.
Verbund, which has been reassessing and shuffling its portfolio,
agreed on the swap as it seeks to focus on "hydropower, majority
holdings and the Austrian and German markets," the company's Chief
Executive Officer Wolfgang Anzengruber said Monday in a
statement.
Write to Yeliz Candemir at yeliz.candemir@dowjones.com and Emre
Peker at emre.peker@dowjones.com