A few weeks back we noted the announcement of a merger/acquisition involving Nicor (#1536 on the Global 5000) and AGL Resources (#1839).  Until now, this has not been common in that many utility companies are tightly regulated or government owned or quasi-government.

This week we see an even bigger merger coming between Duke Energy and Progress Energy.  And, we can expect more as utility companies look to merge or acquire and use scale to manage large amounts of debt these companies have.

There is more.  In between these two events, China has been very active as State Grid (the largest utility) has assumed management of a large portion of the Philippine utility operations and then last week, announced the acquisition of utility assets in Brazil and will manage them.

For those selling to the utility companies, a lot of activity and a lot of change — that usually means opportunity. And, don’t stop at the US borders. The international scene is very active as well offering more opportunity.

We have 131 Utility companies in the Global 5000 representing approximately $1.5 trillion in revenue and they employ over 4 million people.

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