Bernotat To Continue E.ON Charge

Wulf Bernotat will help E.ON, Europe's second biggest utility, fill in the gaps in its global expansion plans when he takes charge of the German company in May, investors said.

Bernotat, 53, worked for 20 years at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and became CEO of E.ON's transportation unit Stinnes in 1998. In the two years since he oversaw the company's initial offering, Stinnes stock doubled, outperforming its rivals.

Bernotat will succeed CEO Ulrich Hartmann, who has transformed E.ON into the industrial world's second biggest electricity supplier after Electricite de France. Hartmann has sold ten units worth $32 billion since 2000 and announced seventeen acquisitions worth about the same amount in the past year alone.

“Hartmann has brought the company forward to focus on gas and electricity,” said Carsten Schlufter, a fund manager at Deka Bank Deutsche Girozentrale in Frankfurt, which oversees about 131 billion euros in shares, including E.ON stock. “Bernotat now will have to develop those businesses."

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