French state to file EDF share offer with regulator on Tuesday – source

PARIS (Reuters) -The French state will file an offer for the purchase of the remaining EDF shares it does not already own with the country’s AMF financial market regulator later on Tuesday, said a source with knowledge of the matter.

The market regulator will have three weeks to consider the offer once it is submitted.

The government had originally intended to launch its takeover of EDF with the regulator in early September but the process was delayed amid a fast-changing regulatory environment and a record number of nuclear reactor outages.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government in July announced it would fully nationalise the debt-laden utility, which shoulders most of the country’s power needs and will be the centrepiece of an ambitious reactor construction programme.

The state already owns 84% of EDF shares. The government said in the summer it was offering 12 euros per share to buy the outstanding shares at a cost of 9.7 billion euros ($9.58 billion).

($1 = 1.0130 euros)

(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet and Leigh ThomasEditing by Richard Lough/Sudip Kar-Gupta and Louise Heavens)