Turkey's EnerjiSA Seeks 10% of Electricity Market as E.ON Gets Stake

By Yeliz Candemir and Emre Peker

ISTANBUL--EnerjiSA Enerji AS, a joint-venture power generator in Turkey, is seeking to expand its share of the country's growing electricity market to 10% as E.ON SE (EOAN.XE), Germany's biggest utility, takes a 50% stake in the company, said Guler Sabanci, chairman of Haci Omer Sabanci Holding AS (SAHOL.IS), which owns the rest of the shares.

E.ON said Monday that it swapped assets with Verbund AG (VER.VI), giving Austria's biggest utility eight run-of-river hydroplants along the Danube and Inn rivers in exchange for the EnerjiSA stake.

"We see Turkey as our latest new homeland," E.ON's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Johannes Teyssen said Tuesday in Istanbul, adding that the Düsseldorf-based company was expanding here following forays into Russia and Brazil. Rising energy demand in Turkey is a "serious potential" that creates opportunities for E.ON, he told reporters at an EnerjiSA press conference on the share swap.

EnerjiSA had revenues of 3.7 billion lira ($2.1 billion) in 2011 and aims to reach 10% market share by 2015. Turkey is targeting TRY200 billion of energy investments by 2023 to meet growing demand amid an economic expansion that has averaged 5.5% in the past decade, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Tuesday at the EnerjiSA press conference.

Verbund, which has been reassessing and shuffling its portfolio, agreed on the swap as it seeks to focus on "hydropower, majority holdings and the Austrian and German markets," the company's Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Anzengruber said Monday in a statement.

Write to Yeliz Candemir at [e-mail] and Emre Peker at [e-mail]