* CEO expects to sell less than 49 percent Green Power stake
* Private funds still interested
* Sept. 23 deadline for offers for Spanish gas assets
By Ian Simpson
CERNOBBIO, Italy, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Italian utility Enel SpA has had a generally positive reaction to the planned sale of a stake in its Green Power renewables unit and sees no reason to delay the offer, Chief Executive Fulvio Conti said on Saturday.
Enel, Europe's most-indebted utility, is planning to sell a minority stake in its renewables arm in what may be Europe's biggest initial public offering (IPO) this year or via a private sale. The sale of shares is pencilled in for October.
"Up until now, what we have heard on the marketplace are good signs, even in these days. A company of the quality ... of Enel Green Power can justify our confidence in a successful flotation," Conti told Reuters Insider on the margins of the European House-Ambrosetti business conference.
Enel expects to raise "north of 3 billion euros" ($4.03 billion) from the sale, he said.
Asked if the stake sold could reach as high 49 percent, Conti said: "I don't anticipate that much. It's going to be a sizable minority."
At least one investment manager contends Enel will have to sell shares at a deep discount to draw investors and the sale should wait for better market conditions.
Conti said that if the price was not right, the sale could be postponed. "But I don't see any reason to dwell on that option."
PRIVATE INTEREST
Conti said private funds were still looking at Green Power.
"I guess toward the end of the month, the early part of October, we will be in a better position to assess the opportunities offered by the international investors," he said.
Conti declined to comment about the possible size of a stake for private investors or who they were.
The Green Power sale is part of a disposals programme to cut Enel's debt to 45 billion euros by the end of 2010 from almost 54 billion euros at the end of June.
As part of the programme, one company is looking at its assets in Bulgaria, Conti said. Enel also could see several binding offers for its Spanish gas assets, with the deadline Sept. 23, he said.
Enel said in July there were four candidates to buy the gas grid of Spanish unit Endesa SA without disclosing names.
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($1=.7453 Euro) (Editing by Mike Peacock)