Enel, Italy's utilities giant, which has recently won the tender for the acquisition of Electrica Muntenia Sud, regarded as the most valuable electrical power distribution company in Romania, now includes in its immediate strategy the takeover of production facilities in view of creating an integrated portfolio on the power market.
Enel has made two moves on the power market by acquiring Banat and Dobrogea distribution companies in a package deal and winning the tender for Muntenia Sud, in order to become the biggest investor on electricity and gas markets by far, with an investment volume of close to one billion euros.
The Italians will not stop here, though, and they are ready to raise the bet on the domestic power market.
"It is very important that we get production facilities. If one wants to be a powerful operator, one has to be integrated along the entire production-distribution-supply chain," says Gianluca Caccialupi, general manager with Enel Romania.
"Beside participation in the project related to the nuclear reactors 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda station, we are interested in the entire power production chain, either from bituminous coal, or through energy complexes, as well as from wind sources. Bio energy is more than a simple opportunity for us," explains Enel's representative.
The first privatisation process in the Romanian electrical power sector, namely the tender for Electrica Banat and Electrica Dobrogea, was also Caccialupi's first contact with the Romanian market.
One of the first things the Italians have done since they started running the two firms was to radically change the way they were organised.
"The companies simply had a state organisation. The changes we made targeted two directions: a more efficient management and stronger ability to face competition emerging on a free market," says Caccialupi. "Now,
