The troubled French group building Britain’s new nuclear plant suffered a share price slump yesterday after warning that profits would fall next year amid a drop in electricity prices.
Investors took fright after Eléctricité de France said it expected a pre-tax profit of between €13.7 billion and €14.3 billion in 2017. This represents a 12 per cent fall compared with its profit forecast for this year.
EDF’s share price fell 12.68 per cent to €9.78 in Paris as a result of the warning.
Although more than 85 per cent of EDF’s stock is owned by the French state, the group was listed on the CAC 40 blue-chip index until last December. It was thrown off the index after losing 61 per cent of its value.
EDF attributed its expected fall in profits next year to lower electricity prices in France and the UK, its two biggest markets.
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With a debt of more than €37 billion, analysts said the group could ill-afford to see profits fall.
EDF has pledged to shoulder two thirds of the £18 billion cost of building two European pressurised reactors planned at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which are designed to provide 7 per cent of Britain’s electricity. China General Nuclear has the remaining third.
EDF will also have to find at least €50 billion to undertake a renovation of many of its ageing 58 French reactors.