Chavez nationalizes electric company

[Guerrilla22]

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez's government moved to nationalize Venezuela's largest private electric company on Thursday, signing an agreement to buy a controlling stake in Electricidad de Caracas from its U.S.-based owner, AES Corp.

The sale agreement was signed by Paul Hanrahan, president and chief executive of Arlington, Va.-based AES, during a ceremony at the presidential palace in Caracas, agreeing to pass the company's 82-percent stake in the utility to the Venezuelan government within three months.

Venezuela will pay some $739.3 million for AES' share in Electricidad de Caracas, said Rafael Ramirez, president of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. He said the company is valued at $900 million as a whole.

Ramirez said minority shareholders would have "the option to stay with us in the new state company or of course to sell us their shares."

"We are preserving the interest of the minority shareholders," said Ramirez, who signed along with Vice President Jorge Rodriguez on behalf of the government.

The deal marks the first of multiple nationalization moves planned by Chavez since he was re-elected in December. The Venezuelan president also plans to nationalize other smaller companies in the electrical sector, as well as the country's largest telephone company, CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, CANTV.

Electricidad de Caracas has been privately owned since its founding in 1885. U.S.-based AES, a global power company that today has businesses in 26 countries, bought a majority stake of Electricidad de Caracas in a hostile takeover in 2000.

[redcannon]

hooray! :lol:

[grove street]

I hope these communes/councils or commites that he promises will be set up soon so the people have more of say/control over the centralised wealth and not just the government. This needs to be done to combat burecracy.

[Cheung Mo]

I'm not fond of this: Why should Venezuelans pay foreign capitalists for ownership and control of their own natural resources? Such ownership is a fundamental right -- and not a privilege -- of the Venezuelan people.

All of these resources were obviously given away to cronies of past conservative and social democratic governments without the consent of the Venezuelan people and should have been reclaimed by force (if need be) and at no cost.

And if the minority shareholders are also foreign vultures, why should Chavez give a damn about protecting their investments?

If Chavez is paying off the USian capitalist class, what's to stop him from betraying the revolution in other ways? (And this comes from someone who has generally admired the man -- aside from his dealings with Iran -- and the revolution of which he is serving as a catalyst.)