March 04, 2007	Sunday	Safar 14, 1428

FRANKFURT/MILAN, March 3: German utility E.ON may buy a stake in Italian rival Enel to use as a bargaining tool in its 41 billion-euro ($53.97bn) takeover bid for Spain’s Endesa, a magazine reported.

German weekly Spiegel said Goldman Sachs was advising E.ON to buy a stake of up to 25 per cent in Enel on the international markets, possibly to offer as a swap for Enel’s growing Endesa stake. The magazine did not say what its source was.

A decision on the matter should be made next week, Spiegel said in an advance copy of an article to be published on Monday.

Both Goldman Sachs and E.ON declined to comment to Reuters.

Enel, which snapped up 9.9 per cent of Endesa on Tuesday, said on Friday it had signed an options deal to take its theoretical stake in Endesa to 22 per cent, making it the top shareholder in Spain’s biggest utility.

It declined to comment on the Spiegel article on Saturday.

The Italian state controls 32 per cent of Enel, whose company charter contains obstacles for parties seeking to acquire significant stakes.

The company bylaws say the state has a right to oppose, with justifications, “the acquisition by persons or entities ... of significant holdings... those that represent at least 3 per cent of the share capital constituted by shares with voting rights”.

On Saturday, E.ON managing board member Christoph Daenzer-Vanotti was quoted as saying in Spanish newspaper Expansion: “It is not certain that the result is going to be satisfactory for us.” Enel's swoop on Endesa under E.ON’s nose prompted claims this week that Rome had done a deal with Madrid, which has long opposed E.ON’s Endesa bid, and that the two could be working together to bring other Spanish-Italian deals to fruition.

The EU's industry commissioner, Guenther Verheugen, called on national governments to keep out of such corporate matters. “Our position, of the Commission, is that the governments should not intervene in such decisions, which should be the exclusive responsibility of companies,” he told Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.—Reuters