[frafra]

The amount of debt is not directly correlated to the health of a company: most companies have debts, and building nuclear reactors is very capital intensive. EDF net income for 2023 is 10B €, while for H1 2024 is 7B €. From 2007 to 2024 always had a positive net worth except for 2022. France is a net-exporter, with cheap, reliable and low emission electricity. Germany is almost the opposite of that.

[Solarisgood]

So it had debt. How will they finance the rebuilding?

[frafra]

Of course it has debt, as almost every company and state :)

EDF got loans from banks and money on the market, based on the fact that investors thinks it is a good investment. That is economics 101 and holds true for all publicly traded companies. The numbers are freely available on the internet, as prescribed by the law for all companies listed.

The debt also went down in 2023. It is worth to remember that EDF is forced by the French government to sell cheap energy, below market price, to protect consumers from rising energy prices (caused by the high reliance of other countries on natural gas from Russia - like Germany that phased-out nuclear in the meanwhile).

Nuclear is also treated differently from renewables when it comes down to low-emission investments by the various EU investment funds, and cannot compete in bidding rounds together with renewables (which drives the prices up, as there is way more demand than offer, so it makes no sense to compete). If the EU commission decides that there should be technological neutrality on low-emission power plants, EDF would be in a quite good position.

If you are so sure that EDF will not be able to finance its debt or build new reactors, you can bet against it by short it and, if your analysis is correct, make quite some money.