Hong Kong Firms Buy EDF's Power Grids Video

In other business news... it's gearing up to be one of the largest infrastructure deals seen in years. Two Hong Kong power companies are planning to buy EDF's British power grids for $9.1 billion.

Hong Kong Electric and Cheung Kong Infrastructure are planning to buy France's EDF's British power grids for $9.1 billion.

EDF, the world's second-largest utility, will announce the sale in Paris later on Friday, when it is due to also release its first-half results.

Trading in shares of both Hong Kong firms, controlled by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing, was suspended on Friday.

HKE and CKI beat the only other remaining bidder in the process, a rival consortium that included Macquarie Group, Canada Pension Plan and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The transaction is the largest such deal since October 2006, as the onset of the credit crisis hampered funding for these kinds of transaction that rely heavily on cheap debt to ramp up returns from low-margin infrastructure companies.

Utilities throughout Europe are shedding assets to pay for billions of euros of takeovers as well as to raise money for billions of euros of upcoming investments in new power plants.

The deal comes as part of a slew of grid sales by utilities in Europe, partly for regulatory reasons as well as because the assets no longer provided the returns the utilities expected.