The sale of Kentucky Utilities Co. and Louisville Gas & Electric Co. was finalized Monday. The companies are now owned by Pennsylvania-based PPL Corp., which paid $7.625 billion — $6.7 billion in cash and an absorption of $925 million of debt — to buy them from European energy giant E.ON.

The acquisition of KU and LG&E will boost PPL's annual revenue to more than $10 billion, from $7.6 billion in 2009. PPL also adds 1.2 million customers served by the two Kentucky companies to its 2.6 million in the United Kingdom and 1.4 million in Pennsylvania.

"Going forward, we're a stronger company with excellent prospects for further growth," PPL CEO James Miller said in a statement.

The purchase of KU and LG&E marks the third time in a little more than a decade that the utilities have changed ownership. In May 2000, they were bought by the British company Powergen, which sold them to E.ON the next year.

The PPL acquisition was approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission in late September, though the regulatory body imposed a number of requirements. Among them is a moratorium on any base-rate increases by KU or LG&E until Jan. 1, 2013. The companies both were approved by the PSC for rate increases in July, despite protests by the state attorney general's office that the rate case should have been suspended until the ownership change was finished.

Among the other requirements is that the headquarters of both must remain in Lexington and Louisville for at least 15 years.