Description
Electricidade de Portugal is a Portuguese electric utilities company, headquartered in Lisbon. It was founded in 1976 through the merger of 14 nationalised electricity companies.
History
EDP was founded as Electricidade de Portugal, E.P. by the Portuguese government though the Decreto-lei nº 502/76 published on June 30, 1976, merging 14 former energy companies that had been nationalised by 1975 in the aftermath of the regime change in 1974, of which the most significant had been the Companhias Reunidas de Gás e Eletricidade (CRGE). The Portuguese state privatised the company in several phases, from 1996 to 2011.
In March 2007 the group made a US$3 billion takeover of Horizon Wind Energy, the Texan-based wind power producer. At the time, it was the largest renewable energy deal to date and made EDP the fourth largest wind power producer in the world. The firm's renewables operations (including Horizon) are now contained within its majority-owned subsidiary EDP Renováveis, 25% of which was floated on the Lisbon Stock Exchange in 2008.
The company was ranked at position 239 in the 2009 issue of the Forbes Global 2000.
China Three Gorges Corporation, a SOE, won in December 2011 the bidding for the Portuguese government's 21.35% interest in the company. The transaction is expected to be concluded by April 2012. As of February 2014, just under 45% of the ownership of EDP was controlled by five institutional shareholders. Amongst the others were the Qatar Investment Authority and BlackRock.
In late 2018 EDP's largest shareholder, China Three Gorges Corporation, proposed a hostile takeover of EDP. This was ultimately rejected at the shareholders meeting on April 24, 2019.
