EON SE 
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Power plant and energy trading group Uniper (>> Uniper SE) has raised its dividend and profit outlook for 2017, possibly increasing the appeal of a 47 percent stake in the company which parent E.ON (>> E.ON) plans to sell.
Shares in Uniper rose more than 3 percent in early trade to a record high, giving the group which made its market debut last September a value of some 6.8 billion euros (6.25 billion pounds).
Plagued by years of falling wholesale power prices and subsequent writedowns in the value of its assets, E.ON last year spun off Uniper, which operates roughly 40 gigawatts of power plants in Europe and Russia.
Yet wholesale prices have picked up markedly from record lows set last year, with Germany's benchmark contract for delivery in 2018
Uniper said on Tuesday first-half operating profit at its European generation unit more than doubled to 284 million euros, driven by cost cuts and higher output in Sweden, where one of its nuclear reactors came back into operation.
Uniper now expects adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of between 1.0 billion euros and 1.2 billion, up from a previous forecast of between 0.9 billion and 1.2 billion. It also expects its dividend to rise by a quarter, which translates into a payout of 0.69 euros per share for 2017, against a previous forecast of a 15 percent increase.
E.ON Chief Executive Johannes Teyssen said in May the group planned to sell its remaining stake in Uniper soon, with options including a market placing or a sale to a third party.
Sources told Reuters that Finland's Fortum (>> Fortum Oyj) would be interested in some, but not all, of Uniper's assets, which include hydroelectric, coal- and gas-fired plants, storage assets and trading floors, as well as stakes in gas pipelines, LNG terminals and nuclear plants across Europe.
(Editing by Maria Sheahan and David Holmes)
By Christoph Steitz
