João Marques da Cruz, the EDP director with responsibility for liaising with CTG, made clear that Mozambique looked the better prospect among African countries with strong links to Portugal, given that its grid has cross-border interconnections.

State holding company Parpública sold its 4.144% stake to institutional investors for €356m, much less than it paid for them in swapping convertible bonds to shares.

The success of China Three Gorges’ investment in EDP “will open the way to investment by other Chinese companies in Portugal,” said Cao Guangjing before praising the “long relationship” and depth of the ties between the two countries.

China Three Gorges, the largest shareholder in EDP said it was interested in buying the 4.14% the Portuguese government still owns in the Portuguese power utility.

EDP’s higher corporate tax payment led the company to lower profits in the third quarter, revealed on the same day it sold a 49% stake in four US wind farms.

EDP’s wind-energy subsidiary benefited from increased power output, at higher average prices.

Bank of China has signed a €800m loan with EDP, Portugal’s main electricity company and second largest natural gas distributor.

EDP CEO António Mexia said it was the first time China Development Bank Corp. granted a loan to a non-Chinese company outside of China.

After the sale of EDP and REN, there are still seven state-owned companies up for to privatisation in Portugal. PDV has talked to two former ministers about the timing and the pitfalls of privatising the country’s utility companies and compiled a guide about those for sale.