* Looks to raise up to 1 bln stg from assets sales
* To cut net headcount by 4,000
* Cuts dividend by 30 pct
(Updates with details throughout, analyst comment, share
prices)
LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) - Centrica CNA.L will cut around
10 percent of its workforce and sell up to 1 billion pounds
($1.56 billion) worth of upstream and wind assets by 2017 as
Britain's largest utility looks to focus on energy supply and
services.
The owner of energy supplier British Gas reported a three
percent fall in first-half adjusted operating profit to 1
billion pounds on Thursday, meeting expectations.
It also announced plans to ramp up services offerings such
as helping large business implement energy saving measures such
as installing energy-efficient light bulbs.
Many European utilities are looking for new strategies as
their decades-old model of centralised, predictable energy
production and consumption grapples with falling power prices
and reduced consumption.
Under a cost-saving drive the company will shed 6,000 jobs
from its nearly 37,500 staff but expects to create 2,000 jobs in
new business areas.
It did not specify which areas the cuts would come from.
Cost-cutting measures are expected to save around 750
million pounds a year by 2020, it said.
New chief executive, former BP (LONDON:BP) man Iain Conn, said the North
Sea would remain the focus of Centrica's upstream operations.
It signalled that it no longer sees its Canadian operations
as core to the business and reiterated plans to sell upstream
assets in Trinidad and Tobago.
Centrica owns a number of producing assets in Canada, most
notably a 60 percent stake in gas fields in Alberta which it
bought in 2013 for C$1 billion ($771 million).
Conn said Centrica had made solid progress in reducing the
company's net debt and strengthening its balance sheet.
He said it was now "well placed to compete materially
against the emerging long-term trends in global energy markets".
Centrica will also invest 250 million pounds over the next
five years to expand its North American retail business. Some
analysts had expected the company to consider selling parts of
that business.
The company's nuclear assets, a 20 percent stake in EDF
Energy, the British subsidiary of France's EDF EDF.PA , will be
retained.
The group reduced its interim dividend by 30 percent to 3.57
pence, as announced earlier. ID:nL5N0VT17A
Analysts were broadly positive about the planned changes for
the company.
"Centrica's management have at least now given shareholders
a plausible business plan that offers a chance that the business
can survive," said Peter Atherton, a utility analyst at
investment bank Jefferies.
Shares were down 2.7 percent at 267 pence at 0840 GMT.
($1 = 0.6406 pounds)
($1 = 1.2970 Canadian dollars)