NextEra Energy (NEE) will acquire Dominion Energy (D) in a $66.8 billion all-stock transaction, marking the largest power-sector tie-up on record and creating the largest electric utility in the country.
Dominion stock jumped roughly 15% in premarket trading, while NextEra stock fell roughly 1.5% before the bell as investors digested the news of a deal the companies said will create the โworldโs largest regulated electric utility business.โ
The deal will see NextEra exchange roughly eight-tenths of a share of its stock for each outstanding Dominion share, according to a press release from NextEra, with NextEra shareholders set to own roughly 75% of the combined entity and receive an additional $360 million in cash.
A tie-up between NextEra, which operates the countryโs largest utility service by market value and a significant power generation business, and mid-Atlantic utility service Dominion would create a sprawling power company with both massive utility zones and significant generation technology to fuel them.
While NextEraโs utility business, Florida Power & Light, covers customers throughout roughly half of Florida, Dominionโs mid-Atlantic and southeast footprint includes northern Virginiaโs Loudon County, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world.
The combined entity would serve roughly 10 million utility customers across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and own 110 gigawatts of power generation across a spread of energy sources, NextEra said.
The move by NextEra would almost certainly mark the largest M&A deal on record in the power sector โ and it would be the second-largest transaction in 2026, following SpaceXโs (SPAX.PVT) $250 billion tie-up with xAI in what is set to be a banner year for dealmaking.
The deal would likely dwarf Constellation Energyโs (CEG) $26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine in 2025 and Duke Energyโs (DUK) 2012 acquisition of Progress Energy for $32 billion, which at the time created the largest electric utility in the country.
The announcement comes as demand for electricity across the US has surged amid the explosion of the data center industry, which is underpinning the mass build-out of artificial intelligence technology. The demand has sent companies scrambling to round up additional generation capacity and expand their reach, including through an increasing number of M&A transactions.
Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at jake.conley@yahooinc.com.