JOBS could be at risk following the sale of SEEBOARD, the electricity supplier, to a French-owned group for £1.39 billion.

American Electric Power is selling SEEBOARD to London Electricity (LE Group), a French-owned supplier, to reduce debt.

AEP will receive £670 million in cash for SEEBOARD, and LE Group will take on SEEBOARD debt of approximately £722 million.

The sale includes SEEBOARD's 37.5 per cent stake - around £100m - in Medway Power, a gas-fired power station on the Isle of Grain.

LE Group is owned by Electricite de France and supplies energy to nearly 3m customers.

SEEBOARD, based in Crawley, employs some 4,000 people. It sells electricity and gas to about 1.9 million customers, most of them in Kent, Medway, Sussex and parts of Surrey. AEP bought the company two years ago.

John Weight, SEEBOARD's chief executive, warned that some jobs could go. He said: "There will probably be an impact on jobs but there will also be some exciting career opportunities for many SEEBOARD staff in a group that will serve in the order of five million supply customers and seven and a half million distribution customers. "

An LE spokesman said: "We see this 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."

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."