The owners of Urenco are testing the market to gauge investor interest in the uranium enrichment company, said Uwe Beckmeyer, parliamentary state secretary in the German economy and energy ministry.
Urenco, the world's second-largest nuclear fuel vendor after Russia's Tenex, could fetch up to 10 billion euros ($12 billion), but the complex ownership structure makes a sale or initial public offering difficult, sources have told Reuters.
Urenco is co-owned by Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. The German government's one-third stake in Urenco is held by utilities E.ON and RWE, so it is not directly involved in the market test, Beckmeyer wrote in a reply to a parliamentary question put by far-left party Linke.
"But there are no sales talks," he said in the reply, which was cited by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Sources earlier this month told Reuters that a stock market listing is the preferred option for Urenco but said such a step may only materialize after a general election in Britain in May.
Separate sources said in October that the governments had asked prospective buyers to submit indicative bids for the firm by the end of the year.
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