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Veba, Viag tweak merger
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December 9, 1999: 3:56 a.m. ET
Viag gains bigger share in $14.3B German energy combination
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LONDON (CNNfn) - German utilities Veba and Viag tweaked the terms of their $14.3 billion merger Thursday, slightly improving the deal for Viag shareholders.
The change raises to 35.5 percent the share of the new entity - which will be Europe's largest publicly traded energy company - to be held by Viag’s owners, from 33 percent under the original terms. Veba shareholders will own the rest of the merged company.
The greater weighting given to Viag is due to improved performances in the smaller company’s telecom and aluminum divisions, the merger partners reported.
Viag stock surged on the good news, rising 7 percent to  16.7, while Veba slid almost 4 percent to 44.
The change comes despite contrasting sets of nine-month earnings from the two companies announced Thursday.
Viag said its nine-month earnings slumped 15 percent to 2.2 billion German marks ($1.2 billion) and predicted a significant fall in full-year profits as a result of price reductions following the deregulation of the sector. Electricity income is set to fall further in 2000, although start-up losses in other businesses should fall, the company reported.
Veba, on the other hand, posted a 15 percent jump in operating income for the same period, while its pretax profit soared 94 percent to 3.66 billion ($3.75 billion), flattered by significant one-time gains from the sale of investments in Cable & Wireless (CW-) and the divestment of large parts of its telecom activities. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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