UK considering British Energy stake sale: report

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK government has approached energy suppliers to see if they are interested in its 35.2 percent stake in nuclear power company British Energy Group Plc BGY.L, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

The newspaper quoted people close to the situation as saying Germany's E.ON AG EONG.DE and RWE (RWEG.DE), France's EDF (EDF.PA), Iberdrola (IBE.MC) of Spain and Britain's Centrica (CNA.L) were approached to see if they were interested in acquiring part of the stake, worth at least 2 billion pounds ($4.06 billion).

The newspaper said UBS had been mandated by the government to help with a potential sale while British Energy had appointed NM Rothschild as its advisor.

"The government is keeping its stake in British Energy under review," a spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said in a statement.

The spokesman said UBS had been appointed to advise the government on commercial and financial aspects of the interest in nuclear new build in Britain.

"This may include advice on any proposals coming forward from British Energy following the company's call for new build partners, but UBS is not touting the government's stake on the market as is suggested," the spokesman added.

The FT said the government had declined to comment but it quoted an insider as saying: "Of course, we would look at any offer carefully".

Sue Fletcher, a spokeswoman for British Energy, said the company could not comment on speculation.

In Germany, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoted sources from energy industry in Britain as saying that RWE would likely be among the 4 interested parties in British Energy.

RWE declined to comment, while a Paris-based spokeswoman for EDF also declined to comment on the FT article.

(Additional reporting by Mantik Kusjanto, Sudip Kar-Gupta)