View source for N M Rothschild & Sons

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 Sunday Business (London)  
Sunday Business (London)

June 26, 2005, Sunday

KR-ACC-NO: SU-NUCLEAR-BANK-20050626

LENGTH: 544 words

HEADLINE: Rothschild champions nuclear joint venture

BYLINE: By Richard Orange

BODY:
 N.M. Rothschild, the London merchant bank, is leading an initiative to finance, build and manage Britain's next generation of nuclear power stations. It plans to create a jointly-owned nuclear power company, provisionally named New Nuclear, that could raise funds and manage the nuclear-build programme.

The move highlights Rothschild's long-held ambitions to dominate the next phase of nuclear power development. The company was previously adviser to private nuclear generator British Energy for what would have been the Sizewell C power station. Rothschild in 1994 led attempts to raise 3.5bn (E5.3bn, $ 6.4bn) in funding for the plant, which was never built.

The Business has learned that Rothschild has drawn up the plan on behalf of its client, state nuclear group BNFL, which is looking at ways in which a UK nuclear revival could be funded by the private sector.

Rothschild's is proposing instead that a minimum of three of the UK's six utilities take stakes in New Nuclear. The three main contenders would be the UK arms of Eon, RWE and Electricite de France (EdF), whose European parent companies already operate nuclear power stations.

Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power and Centrica could also take stakes, although they could settle for long-term power purchase agreements instead.

Nuclear power generators British Energy and BNFL's Magnox Generation subsidiary, on whose sites any new reactors would likely be built, would not lead the project.

"Rothschild's are very keen to get back into nuclear," said a source at one of the UK power utilities. After British Energy's financial crisis in 2002, the power generator has been ruled out as a contender for funding any new build.

Another source who has seen Rothschild's proposals said: "British Energy may have some sort of role in it, but it couldn't do it by itself. You are in a much better position if you are integrated in supply and retail."

The source added that clubbing together would also help fundraising. British Energy has no customers, making it vulnerable to fluctuations in the power prices. But in times of low power prices, the utilities can balance financial losses from their power generation with higher profits from retail.

Brian Count, who retires as chief executive of RWE's UK arm, next week, said of the scheme: "It's credible; it has merit. The issue is one of spreading the political risks."

He said that if all of the utilities had equal exposure to nuclear generation, they would all be affected equally by a collapse in the electricity price, meaning it would not hurt their competitive position.

They would also be more willing to accept damaging changes in UK energy regulation that would be required to enable the private sector to build new nuclear plants, if they were set to benefit equally from additional supply.