NextEra Energy hops from Frankfurt to Paris amid merger push

NextEra Energy flew from Frankfurt to Paris on June 11, a 57-minute hop in its Embraer Praetor 600 (N31MW). The short intra-European leg is part of a broader tour that included stops in London and Zurich earlier this week — suggesting the company's senior leadership is on the road.

The trip comes just weeks after NextEra Energy announced its $67 billion all-stock acquisition of Dominion Energy, a deal that would create the world's largest regulated electric utility with an enterprise value of roughly $420 billion, per a Power Magazine report on May 18. The merger, which requires approvals from antitrust authorities and regulators across multiple states, is expected to take 12 to 18 months. European investors and energy partners are likely being courted.

CEO John Ketchum has called the deal a “no-brainer” and emphasized that “scale matters more than ever” to meet surging electricity demand from data centers and AI. The European swing — unusual for a utility CEO — suggests NextEra Energy is already working the diplomatic and financial angles needed to close the transaction.