From Friday:

International Power downgraded

Shares in International Power fell in early deals as DKW downgraded the UK utility to sell from hold.

In a note to clients, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein said International Power's share price is up 10% in the last week, driven by earnings upgrades and bid hopes.

Dresdner played down hopes of a bid and cautioned that the high gas prices in the wake of hurricane Wilma in the US may be temporary.

Turning to M&A talk, it believes an RWE bid is highly unlikely; the German group is selling its US water operations and seems unlikely to want to make a new investment in the region in the near term.

Nor, in its view would, RWE be interested in generation capacity in Australia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Middle East, which makes up 40% of the portfolio.


And today:

Japan's Sumitomo, 2 Europe firms to start 1.3 bln usd Bahrain power project
AFX


TOKYO (AFX) -- Sumitomo Corp and two European firms will begin a 1.3 bln usd power generation and water desalinization project in Bahrain by purchasing a state-owned plant, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

In its online edition the newspaper said the completed project is expected to meet 20 pct of Bahrain's total power needs and 65 pct of its urban water demand.

The partners plan to sell electricity and water to the government for 20 years.

Sumitomo's partners are leading UK power supplier International Power and Belgian electricity company Suez Tractebel.

The three firms will set up a joint venture to manage the project, the newspaper said.

It said they will buy a power generation-water purification plant in northeastern Bahrain that can generate one mln kilowatt-hours of electricity and desalinate 135,000 tons of sea water a day.

The firms will also build a new desalination plant with a daily capacity of 270,000 tons, scheduled for completion by November 2007.

The venture will be capitalized at 260 mln usd, with Sumitomo and Tractebel each contributing 30 pct and International Power 40 pct. Any remaining costs will be covered with bank loans.

"GDF SUEZ's new bid for the remaining stake in utilities giant International Power (raised from 390p to 418p per share) is now close to Investec's expectations and the broker expects the offer to 'progress smoothly to its conclusions'.

The broker does not foresee much regulatory risk: "Given that GDFS already owns 70% of IPR, we do not think that there will be too much of a problem with regulatory clearances, especially as the original IPR/GDFS deal went through the merger clearance process from August 2010 to February 2011," Anastasiou added.

Investec has removed its buy rating for International Power and now recommends investors to hold the stock following the sweetened bid. The broker's target price is raised from 417p to 422p."

So it's all about signed and sealed now.
I would like to think that 'chocolat' the thread founder has still got an interest in these and is going to make some money.
Not seen anything of chocolat for some time.
If you are around chocolat it would be nice to see you post on here again :-)