Exclusive: RWE does not rule out exit from Britain - CFO

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[November 20, 2015]  By Tom Käckenhoff, Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German utility RWE  could consider pulling out of Britain if it fails to turn around the business, which has swung to a loss after billing problems and a rapid loss of customers, its chief financial officer told Reuters.

"We're not categorically ruling out adjusting our portfolio of countries," Bernhard Guenther said in an interview, when asked whether RWE would choose to sell its UK unit Npower at some point.

Guenther added it would take at least until 2017 for Npower to return to profit from an expected mid double-digit million-euro loss this year.

RWE lost about 200,000 customers in Britain in the first nine months of the year compared with 100,000 just for the first half, it said last week, sending its shares down 10 percent. It now has 5.4 million customers in the UK.

The UK retail market for power and gas is in flux as customers are disenchanted with faceless and expensive large suppliers, turning to agile new firms that are small and local or aggregators who also sell other services like telecoms.

RWE Npower is among the big six UK household power and gas suppliers who have dominated the market for decades and still control more than 85 percent.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz, Vera Eckert and Tom Kaeckenhoff; Editing by Ludwig Burger and Georgina Prodhan)

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