When the Cameroon government decided in June 1996 to privatize the electricity sector, it embarked on the search for a strategic partner with an adequate financial standing to help in improving and modernising the sector as well as, increasing, in a significant manner, access of the population to electricity and transferring, to Cameroonians, know-how that meets international standards. At the end of five years of work devoted to the precise definition of the global restructuring strategy of the sector, the American group AES-CORP was chosen as partner with government in the Cameroon Electricity Corporation of which government held, directly or indirectly, 97% of the share capital. On the 18th of July 2001, the State of Cameroon ceded 56% of the shares of SONEL to the strategic partner, AES-CORP. The new entity borne out of this transfer was named AES-SONEL.
