Simplify and grow: Enel Américas at the NYSE

Simplify and grow: Enel Américas at the NYSE

With the merger of the three Enel Group companies into Enel Américas, which is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, the Group’s structure becomes more simple and efficient, while also enabling synergies between the various national contexts

December 2, 2016 dawned twice in New York City. The first was at 7 AM sharp, when the first rays of the rising sun over Manhattan began to bathe the top floors of the tallest skyscrapers in a golden shower of light. Exactly two and a half hours later, the second dawn was announced, this time by the sound of the Opening Bell that traditionally marks the start of trading in Wall Street. For us at Enel, the sound of that bell echoing through the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30 AM on December 2nd had a deeper meaning, because the person pushing the button was our CEO, Francesco Starace.

Welcome, Enel Américas

The “Opening Bell” symbolically marked the birth of Enel Américas, as the company, already fully operational, had been officially named 24 hours earlier. This is a new dawn in the Americas, a new page in our history.

“With Enel Américas we have opened a new chapter in a transitional phase that is epoch-making for our sector”

– Francesco Starace, CEO Enel

This new start also marks a finishing point: the ambitious goal of more than five hundred days of hard work during which, said Starace, “we ran a marathon to completely change the structure of the Group in America, opening a new chapter in a transitional phase that is epoch-making for our sector. We have built a machine that is able to grow, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, where energy demand is currently among the highest in the world. And we will be focusing our utmost attention on it from now on.”

 

Three Enel companies listed in New York

Pushing that button was also a way to celebrate the listing on the world’s largest stock exchange of Enel Américas, which was born from the merger of Enersis Américas, Endesa Américas and Chilectra Américas. It now sits alongside Enel Chile and Enel Generación Chile to create a trio of listed companies on the New York Stock Exchange.

To mark the occasion the normally austere neoclassical facade of the Stock Exchange building was adorned with a huge Enel logo that was also displayed on the monitors of the trading floor and the waistcoats of the brokers. One of the main protagonists of the day was the new visual identity of the Group that now joins together the many companies that previously made up the galaxy of the Latin American company organization.

But this is not just a rebranding operation. Upholding a name like Enel means adopting a corporate vision, summed up by the Open Power approach, which is a new way of conceiving, producing, and distributing energy that responds to one of the fundamental principles of our Strategy: Group simplification.

Ryan O'Keeffe, Director of Communications, commented: “Enel is much more complex than most people think; 14 companies of the Group are listed on the stock exchange.” 

“Simplification is fundamental to make our equity story clearer and more convincing”

– Ryan O'Keeffe, Director of Communications

And again, in Starace’s words: “By making our organization less complicated our people can work better, the company becomes more efficient, and we can be more rewarding for our shareholders. To take one example, we had estimated that this effort would enable us to save more than €400 million, but we have already done much better than that”.

 

Strategies in Latin America

Enel Américas is addressing the present and the future with a completely new structure that is designed to enable the Group to reach the objectives of its Open Power strategy in Latin America as well. “Rationalization will enable the synergies between the different countries to work better, unleashing new resources, creating a leaner decision-making process, and generating more profits for industrial growth,” said Alberto De Paoli, Enel’s Chief Financial Officer. 

“Now we must adapt our new company structure to suit the particular characteristics of each individual market”

– Alberto De Paoli, Enel CFO

"Up to now it has been very difficult to manage the business of our various companies in Latin America. But now this is Day One for us when we begin creating value and profit in that part of the world", said De Paoli. "Having completed the company’s reorganization, we now expect to begin detailed work to adapt the new organisation to the particular characteristics of each individual market and the specific needs of each country."  He added that the goals for 2017 will be to “find the most appropriate solutions in these different areas to increase investment and improve the quality of the service we offer our customers”.

 

A company “that is making the world a better place”

Country by country, by the end of 2016 the Enel name and logo will have spread throughout the whole of Latin America: a single identity that embodies a philosophy which, as the President of the New York Stock Exchange, Tom Farley, said to Starace, makes you a company “that is making the world a better place” and will enable the Group to make itself better known to the over 18.6 million clients we are already serving in the region today, walking beside them on their journey towards the future of energy.