After rejecting a sale of the entire company to Electricite de France (EDF) in October in favor of a deal with MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., the Constellation Energy board said Monday it is willing to talk with the French company about its proposal to acquire Constellation nuclear assets.

Constellation’s board has authorized discussions and an exchange of information with EDF related to an unsolicited proposal received from EDF on Dec. 2. Constellation said the decision to talk with EDF is consistent with its merger agreement with MidAmerican. The Constellation board has not changed its recommendation that shareholders vote in favor of the merger with MidAmerican. A special meeting for a vote remains scheduled for Dec. 23.

After EDF’s first bid for Baltimore-based Constellation in mid-October was rebuffed and subsequently dropped by EDF (see Daily GPI, Oct. 17), EDF subsidiary EDF International last week proposed to acquire through a joint venture a 50% ownership interest in Constellation’s nuclear generation and operation business for $4.5 billion (see Daily GPI, Dec. 4).

EDF’s proposal provides for an up-front $1 billion cash investment in Constellation to be credited against the purchase price for EDF’s interest in the nuclear generation business, and an option under which Constellation could sell nonnuclear generation assets to EDF that have an aggregate value of up to $2 billion.

Under EDF’s proposal, the joint venture would run five of Constellation’s nuclear reactors, including the two at Nine Mile Point and the one at the Robert E. Ginna plant in New York, and the two at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. Constellation and EDF are already in a 50-50 joint venture that was created in the summer of 2007 called UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC to develop new nuclear reactors in the U.S. using Areva SA’s Evolutionary Power Reactor design.

Last month Constellation reported a net loss of $225.7 million (minus $1.27/share) in 3Q2008, compared to earnings of $250.7 million ($1.38/share) in 3Q2007. It also said it would sell its downstream gas trading operations (see Daily GPI, Nov. 7).

©Copyright 2008Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.