The bid for Wessex Water is the latest in a stream of utility takeovers Wessex Water, the privatised water company which supplies more than one million people in south west England, has agreed to a 1.36bn takeover offer from US energy giant Enron. Wessex Water's directors have recommended the offer to shareholders. Enron said there would be no redundancies among Wessex Water's staff of around 1,400 and added it would keep the company's headquarters.
Analysts believe the bid is high enough to succeed.
The current Wessex management team will retain their existing roles after the takeover. Enron, which describes itself as one of the world's leading integrated electricity and gas companies is based in Houston, Texas, and has a large international business. It wants to use Wessex Water to build a new division to take advantage of any future water privatization programmes in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Wessex Water is the latest UK utility group to fall prey to a bid from a US company. The deal could spark another wave of consolidation in the utility industry, with renewed takeover speculation centring on other water groups.