Centrica North America completed its C$1 billion acquisition of Enbridge Services Inc. (ESI) from Calgary- based Enbridge Inc. The acquisition doubles Centrica’s Canadian customer base and brings its total North American customer count to 3.7 million, making it by far the largest retail marketer on the continent. The combined companies will employ more than 2,000 full-time people.

“This acquisition allows us to utilize Centrica’s proven track record in the UK of providing more choice, better value and the highest standards of customer service for the benefit of our customers in Ontario and beyond,” said Deryk King, CEO of Centrica’s North American operations.

ESI provides energy-related services to customers in greater Toronto, the Niagara Peninsula, and central and eastern Ontario. It has 1.75 million customers to whom it leases water heaters and provides residential services including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) installation and servicing. In addition to the home services business, ESI has 98,000 natural gas contract customers, a national business-to-business HVAC operation with more than 50 national accounts, a start-up residential HVAC business in Pennsylvania, and a consumer loan business that supports its retail and HVAC business.

Centrica moved into North America in 2000 by acquiring Direct Energy, the largest unregulated retail energy provider in Canada. The company supplies natural gas to 900,000 customers in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and has signed more than 600,000 electricity customers in Ontario. Through its U.S. subsidiary Energy America, Centrica has become one of the largest multi-state providers of deregulated retail energy services in North America, with more than 400,000 U.S. customers principally located in Georgia, Michigan and Texas.

Last month, Centrica North America announced a deal with American Electric Power to acquire over 800,000 customers in Texas. It also planned to buy NewPower, but that fell through when the bankruptcy judge in the Enron case ruled NewPower would not be excluded from the bankruptcy case and could be exposed to future liability (see Daily GPI, Feb. 21, April 1).

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