In our first two articles in this series, we looked at what is now a fairly limited UK utility companies sector. In our third instalment, we look at this sector in continental Europe, where there is a much larger and more diverse group of companies than we see on the home front. We also find here ownership of many of the UK electricity and water companies, including all five of the UK’s still operating nuclear power stations. There is only one UK stock in the European top 10 utilities by market cap, or two in the top 20.
The largest utility stock listed in Europe is Spain’s Iberdrola (ES:IBE), followed by Italy’s Enel (IT:ENEL) and our own National Grid (NG.). The top three previously included Germany’s Uniper SE, an electricity generator (born out of EOn’s upstream and downstream split) but this was nationalised at the end of 2022. In many countries, there is still a sizeable amount of total state control of electricity and water, including in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland and Sweden.