SNC-Lavalin poised to buy Atomic Energy of Canada

According to reports in the Globe and Mail and CBC News on June 27, the Canadian Government is set to announce the sale of Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) to SNC-Lavalin of Montreal.

The newspaper’s sources said that the details of the deal with the Montreal engineering company were still being worked out, but that the sale of AECL’s commercial division that makes Candu nuclear reactors could be announced before the end of June.

SNC-Lavalin has had a long working relationship with AECL and it became the sole bidder for the AECL  business after Bruce Power lost interest in February.

Commentators said that SNC-Lavalin’s purchase of the Crown corporation could be beneficial since the engineering company does much business in developing countries where there could be opportunities to build new Candu reactors. Also, Ontario is planning to building two new Candu units at its Darlington plant.

However, AECL is in financial troubles and has been struggling to compete with rival nuclear energy companies such as France’s Areva, and U.S.-Japanese Toshiba-Westinghouse and Hitachi.