By John Bowker and Nao Nakanishi
LONDON (Reuters) - British gas and electricity provider Scottish & Southern Energy would be interested in buying EDF's 3 billion pound British power grid if it were put up for sale.
"You would be surprised if a company like SSE were not interested in UK assets. So you would expect us to have a look at that. The key question is can you create value at the price?," Chief Executive Ian Marchant said on Thursday.
France-based EDF was reported to be considering a sale of the electricity distribution network earlier this month in order to pay for new power plants.
Marchant told reporters it would not be clear whether the grid was up for sale for six to nine months. He was speaking as SSE posted a 2 percent rise in 2008-09 profits and forecast profit, dividend and customer growth in 2009-10.
The company also announced a string of new power generation developments, including a gas plant in Wales and a wind farm in Shetland, while Medway, it's 700-megawatt gas fired power plant in south-east England restarted after a lengthy outage
SSE shares, down 6 percent this year, were off 1.4 percent at 1139 pence by 9 a.m. British time, valuing the company at 10.6 billion pounds.
"(This) is a solid outcome in a difficult year. In spite of continuing challenging market conditions, the resilient business model should provide the means for slightly faster profit progression, albeit at a lower pace than our previous expectations," Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note.
MODERATE GROWTH
SSE adjusted full-year profit came in at an expected 1.25 billion pounds for the year to end-March, while the dividend was raised 9 percent.
The Perth, Scotland-based company also said in a statement it had gained around 600,000 customers during the year to take it to just over 9 million, and pledged to raise the dividend again next year by 4 percent above inflation.
Marchant said the company would achieve growth across all measures in 2009/10. "If you look at the rest of 2009/2010, we are aiming to achieve moderate PBT growth," he said, adding that he also saw moderate customer growth.
He added that it was hard to predict whether household gas and electricity bills would rise or fall over the longer term, but pledged not to raise prices for 18 months.
"We are seeing quite low spot prices (of wholesale gas), which could imply retail prices should come down, but we are also seeing high forward prices -- suggesting bills could go up," he said.
SSE last dropped household prices at the end of March.
On financing -- needed to pay for development of energy generation and renewables -- Marchant said the company could go to the European Investment Bank (EIB) this year if conditions were right.
"Refinancing is done. We need to finance some of our future capital expenditure. We are in discussions with the EIB on that and are hopeful to reach a successful conclusion," he said.
SSE pulled out of an auction to buy land for new nuclear builds last month, but Marchant said he was still keen to be involved and was looking at more opportunities.
"We are looking at all of the sites that are not owned by RWE or EDF ... there are four or five that could be sold. We are looking to see whether we can find an opportunity," he said.
(Reporting by John Bowker; editing by Simon Jessop)