Five-Year Nightmare for Europe's Top Utilities Drags On

摘要

The past five years have been bleak for most European utilities. The market capitalization of the top six firms in mainland Europe has shrunk, while their share prices have collapsed by over 60% - and by 74% in the case of EDF, France's troubled nuclear giant. Top managers' overweening ambition is, in retrospect, partly to blame. Gas, coal and carbon fundamentals were also contributors. And for German firms in particular, the 2011 government-imposed "flight from nuclear" came as a bolt from the blue.