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BERLIN (Reuters) - German power utility E.ON SE (DE:EONGn) is on the brink of a deal to sell its Spanish operations for 2.5 billion euros (1.98 billion pounds) to Australian infrastructure investor Macquarie Group Ltd (AX:MQG) and a Kuwaiti state fund, the Wall Street Journal Deutschland said on Thursday.
Citing several unnamed sources, the newspaper reported that the supervisory board would approve the deal at a meeting on Friday. It said Macquarie would have 60 percent of the deal, with the rest going to Wren House Infrastructure Management, which is part of the Kuwait Investment Authority.
A spokeswoman for E.ON declined to comment.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that E.ON was in exclusive talks with Macquarie and that its bid valued the unit at substantially more than 2 billion euros.
Aiming to cut its 31 billion euros of debts and rake in cash for investment elsewhere, E.ON has been looking to sell its operations in Italy and Spain for over a year, aiming to retreat from southern Europe after an expected boom in demand failed to materialise.
The Spanish business E.ON is looking to sell, which employs about 1,200 staff, includes a 32,000 km (19,900 mile) power distribution network, which E.ON has said is alone worth about 0.8 billion euros, and some 4 gigawatts of generating capacity.
The utility sells power and gas to about 660,000 customers in the country.
Macquarie has said it is looking to expand its portfolio of power assets in Europe, attracted by the guaranteed returns power assets offer in times of super-low interest rates
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Greg Mahlich)