AXA PE Preps Offer for Endesa’s Gas Network

BERLIN (Reuters) – AXA Private Equity is preparing to make an offer for Endesa’s (ELE.MC) gas assets in Spain together with Italian investment fund F2i, the head of AXA’s infrastructure fund said on Tuesday.

“We have teamed up with F2i again, they are a very strong partner who we have worked with before on Italian acquisitions,” Mathias Burghardt told Reuters on the sidelines of the Infrastructure Investor Europe conference in Berlin.

AXA teamed up with F2i to buy 80 percent of the Italian gas grid of Enel (ENEI.MI) and also made a joint offer for E.ON (EONGn.DE) Italian gas network before pulling out of the process. Enel owns 92 percent of Endesa. [ID:nLT1027036] [ID:nLDE60C13G]

At the end of February, Endesa’s CEO Andrea Bretan said that he was sounding out demand for the potential sale of its gas distribution network in Spain, but that there was no mandate to sell the assets as yet.

Endesa’s gas network in Spain comprises 4,050 kilometres of gas distribution tubes, and 859 kilometres of gas transport tubes covering several Spanish regions including Aragon, The Balearic Islands, and Extremadura.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis; Additional reporting by Jonathan Gleave in Madrid; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)