NextEra Energy is in talks to acquire Virginia-based Dominion Energy in a deal that analysts value at roughly $66 billion, a transaction that would create the largest electric utility in the United States if completed. According to a report by Yahoo Finance, a deal could be announced as soon as May 18 and would be structured primarily as a stock transaction.
Financial analysts say NextEra would offer about 0.8 of its own shares for each Dominion share, along with some cash. Under that structure, existing NextEra shareholders would own about three-quarters of the combined company. NextEra currently carries an enterprise value of about $303 billion, with roughly one-third of that figure representing debt. Dominion's enterprise value sits at about $111 billion, including approximately $50 billion in debt.
The Financial Times first reported the possibility of a transaction on May 16. As of late Sunday, neither utility had commented publicly on the talks.
NextEra is already the largest U.S. utility by market capitalization, valued at roughly $195 billion according to FactSet, nearly twice the market cap of Southern Co., the next-largest utility at about $104 billion. NextEra's regulated utility subsidiary serves about 6 million customers in Florida. The company also operates a separate unregulated unit focused on renewable energy development.
Dominion serves about 4 million customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Virginia is home to a large concentration of U.S. data centers, a detail that analysts say makes Dominion a strategically valuable acquisition target at a moment when electricity demand from artificial intelligence infrastructure is accelerating.
Both companies have already positioned themselves around that demand. NextEra has an agreement with Google tied to the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, a 615-megawatt facility that was previously scheduled for decommissioning after damage from an August 2020 derecho. NextEra said it would invest more than $800 million to bring the plant back online, possibly as soon as 2029. The company also partnered with Meta to add 190 megawatts of solar energy and 168 megawatts of battery storage to the grid in New Mexico.
Earlier this year, NextEra began commercial operation of the Crossroads-Hobbs-Roadrunner project, a 137-mile, $291.6 million double-circuit 345-kilovolt electrical transmission line in New Mexico.
John Ketchum, NextEra's chief executive, has said the company wants to take advantage of what he called "America's golden age of power demand," tied to the rise of artificial intelligence and data centers. NextEra's share value has increased about 15% this year.
Any deal would require regulatory approval before closing. The transaction, if completed, would surpass all previous utility acquisitions in size, according to analysts who have reviewed the proposed terms.