Fortum Shedding Swedish Power Grid

Finland's Fortum is expected to launch a sale of its Swedish power grid seen fetching around 6 billion euros ($7.5 billion) this month, three people familiar with matter said.

The sale follows Fortum's divestments of its smaller Finnish and Norwegian grids and is part of a trend where European energy firms sell networks to cut debt amid low energy prices and focus on power generation and renewable energy.

The people, who declined to be identified because details of the process are not public, said the sale could be completed around the end of the first quarter next year. Fortum declined to comment.

Reporting by Sven Nordenstam