NextEra Energy, among the largest electric utilities in the U.S., is reportedly in talks to acquire Virginia-based Dominion Energy. POWER has learned that a deal, which would be a mostly stock transaction valuing Dominion at about $66 billion according to analysts, could be announced as soon as May 18. The deal if completed would be the largest-ever utility acquisition.
NextEra includes a regulated utility serving about 6 million customers in Florida. The company also has an unregulated unit focused on renewable energy. The Financial Times in an article on May 16 was the first to report a potential deal. Neither utility had commented on the possibility of a deal as of late Sunday.
Financial analysts have said NextEra would offer about 0.8 of its own shares for each Dominion share, along with some cash, and also said existing NextEra shareholders would own about three-quarters of the combined company.
NextEra has an enterprise value—a financial metric measuring a company’s total economic value—of about $303 billion. About one-third of that value is debt.
Dominion’s enterprise value is about $111 billion, with about $50 billion in debt.
Both utilities have been involved in transactions related to increased power demand from data centers; NextEra has an agreement with Google tied to the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.
Dominion serves about 4 million customers in Virginia—home to many current U.S. data centers—and the Carolinas.
FactSet has said NextEra, with a market capitalization of about $195 billion, is the largest U.S. utility by market value, and is worth almost twice as much as Southern Co., the next-largest utility, which has a market cap of about $104 billion.
Any NextEra-Dominion deal would be subject to regulatory approval.
This story will be updated.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
