Areva plans to raise €10bn

Anne Lauvergeon, Areva chief executive, declared an end to years of uncertainty over France’s nuclear champion as the state-owned group unveiled plans to raise €10bn ($14bn) through disposals and the sale of a 15 per cent stake to strategic partners.

Referring to the host of strategic possibilities examined by the French state in recent years for the development of Areva – from a break-up to a merger with Alstom turbines group – Ms Lauvergeon said: “Today all that is over.”

The battle had been won with “a real strategy . . . defended with real arguments”, she said. “The integrated model is the model of reference.”

Ms Lauvergeon has long fought to keep Areva out of the clutches of Alstom, which has lobbied hard for a merger to create a broader international engineering group and at one stage seemed to have won the support of the government.

She has also defended the structure of a group covering the whole range of nuclear activities from uranium mining to reactor design, waste management and fuel processing.

The government’s decision to open up 15 per cent of Areva’s share capital to industrial and strategic investors – part of a financing plan to fund the group’s €10bn investment needs over the next three years – meant that the model had been confirmed, she said.

These new partners – expected to include Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan as well as Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds – would be chosen by both Areva and the state, on the basis of strategic and geopolitical criteria, she said.

The capital increase – which will leave the state with a 75 per cent stake, as 9 per cent is already held by minorities – would come by the end of the year.

Areva has also bowed to pressure from the French government to fund its investments through the disposal of its transport and distribution division, acquired in 2004 from Alstom when that company was on the brink of collapse.

The business would be sold in one block and not at any price said Ms Lauvergeon, who has long resisted pressure for a sale.

A decision was likely to come by the end of September. Alstom has already expressed an interest in bidding, while Schneider Electric is also thought to be looking at the business.