Lorca'sBlood Wedding has only three acts. Electricidade de Portugal's marriage with Hidrocantábricohas required rather more phases. Last time around, EDP's bid for the Spanish generator was stymied by political intervention and ended up with a ménage à cinqinvolving EnBW, Electricitéde France's German associate, and two regional savings banks. Now EDP is at last buying out EnBW, Cajastur and Caser for €1.2bn.

This appears seductive. EDP gets the full control that escaped it first time around, and builds a third force in Spanish electricity, ahead of the creation of the Iberian power market. It is also cheaper than EDP's original 39.5 per cent investment. On the basis of enterprise value to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, the multiple has dropped from 11.5 in 2001 to 10.