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Grid leaps on a £1.5bn US sale
Simon English, Evening Standard01.04.08
A spark was put into National Grid shares today when the power giant unveiled a deal to sell a facility in New York.
It is offloading the Ravenswood Generating System for $2.9 billion (£1.5 billion), which is significantly more than analysts assumed the power station was worth.
National Grid was told by regulators to sell Ravenswood after it completed the £7 billion takeover of Keyspan, a leading gas distributor also based in the north-east of America.
Ravenswood was one of the properties it acquired in the Keyspan deal. It is being bought by TransCanada in a cash deal that will provide a helpful boost to National Grid's finances.
The company has been expanding strongly overseas in the past few years and now makes more money in the US than the UK.
Ravenswood, a gas-fired station, supplies up to 20% of New York's electricity.
National Grid shares were up 7p to 698½p.
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