The biggest announced deal in Europe so far this year and it is as if the financial crisis never happened. German utility RWE has agreed to pay €9.3bn for Dutch utility Essent, including assumed debt. It will pay the municipalities that own Essent in cash, using a credit facility provided by 10 banks in a club deal. And it is doing the deal at boom-time valuations too.

The Netherlands, though, is one of the last frontiers if you are a utility, so normal rules have been suspended. The French, German, Spanish and Italian markets have been consolidated.