Germany's E.ON and French GDF Suez, two leading European utilities, posted lower earnings, partly blaming government and EU policies for prolonging an energy crisis that is leading to power plant closures and asset writedowns.
Both companies said they would step up investment in emerging markets with high growth and stable regulation to try to counter the slowing market in western Europe, where economies are struggling to emerge from recession.
E.ON , Germany's top utility, trimmed its forecast for full-year core earnings to a range of 9.2 to 9.3 billion euros.(£7.78-7.86 billion), from 9.2 to 9.8 billion after the group's nine-month core profit declined by a fifth.
French utility GDF Suez , Europe's second-largest by market value after French peer EDF , posted a 6.5 percent drop in nine-month core earnings and said it would write down European power assets.
Source: Reuters
