ENERGY supplier Seeboard is to being sold for £1.39bn.

American Electric Power (AEP), the US owner of the Crawley group, is selling the business to London Electricity.

The deal involves London Electricity paying AEP £670m in cash and assume debt of about £722m.

AEP gained ownership of the business two years ago through its merger with the then owner of Seeboard, fellow US firm Central and South West.

But AEP said Seeboard was no longer part of its core interests.

"The risks inherent to the competitive retail energy business are best undertaken by consolidators like London Electricity," said chairman, president and chief executive Linn Draper. "Our strengths are in wholesale energy markets."

Seeboard sells electricity and gas to about 1.9 million customers in the UK, the majority of which are in Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

The sale will not mark the return of Seeboard to a UK owner, however. London Electricity is part of state-owned energy group Electricite de France, which also owns the supply arm of energy firm SWEB. It employs 1,000 staff at a customer call centre operation at Doxford Park in Sunderland.

Seeboard employs about 4,000 people but an LE spokesman said it was too early to say if there would be any job losses. He added: "Of course there will be changes, we accept that, but the next step is to get clearance. When we get that, we will set up an integration group which will look at the two groups.

"We see this as very much as a merger and bringing skills together. We have a good track record of not resorting to compulsory redundancies and we fully intend to maintain that."

The deal brings LE's customers to about five million.

LE chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said: "The acquisition of Seeboard is the final major component of our business development strategy in this country, and another important step in the consolidation of the UK energy market.