European utilities 欧洲公用事业Power struggles能源之争（陈继龙 编译）Nov 30th 2006From The Economist print editionPolitical and business interests collide as Europe's energy firms consolidate欧洲能源公司合并引发政治与商业利益冲突。“WE expected a wave—but what happened was a tsunami,” says Emmanuel Turpin, a utilities analyst at Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. Energy-industry insiders predicted a series of mergers and acquisitions in European utilities at the beginning of this year. But hardly anyone expected the announcement in February of two of the biggest-ever takeovers in corporate Europe: the bid for Endesa, a Spanish electricity company, by E.ON, a German power giant; and the merger of Gaz de France (GDF), a French gas firm, and Suez, another French utility.摩根斯坦利投资银行的公用事业分析专家伊曼纽尔•特尔平说：“我们本来期待的是一阵浪潮，可发生的却是一场海啸。”能源产业内部人士早就预言今年伊始欧洲公用事业将实施一连串的并购，但今年 2 月公诸于众的两宗迄今为止欧洲最大的并购案却是大多数人始料未及的：一个是德国能源巨头 E.ON 公司竞购西班牙 Endesa 电力公司，另一个是法国燃气公司（GDF）与另一家法国公用事业公司 Suez 的合并。The latest takeover in the industry, announced this week, is smaller, less spectacular and not much of a surprise. Iberdrola, a Spanish electricity company, announced on November 28th its euro17.2 billion ($22.5 billion) bid for Scottish Power, a British utility. Compared with the E.ON bid, now valued at euro37 billion, and the euro78 billion merger of Suez and GDF, the deal looks like small beer. （1）Yet the acquisition will create one of Europe's six biggest utilities and a world leader in renewable energy. And in striking contrast to the two bigger deals, which are bogged down[1] in legal and political quagmires, it is lik...
