Ignacio Sanchez Galan, the combative chairman of ScottishPower-owner Iberdrola, yesterday fired a new broadside across the bows of his potential enemies and, at the same time, unveiled a 42% surge in net profits to bolster his armoury.

The Basque utility has been at the centre of a tornado of takeover speculation in recent weeks, with Germany's E.ON, France's state-owned EDF, and Spanish construction giant ACS, in various combinations, regarded as the most likely predators.

Iberdrola shares, which are widely held in Scotland following the £11.6bn takeover of ScottishPower last year, have rocketed almost 20% in the past year - some 6% of it in the past month alone - amid the takeover rumours.

Shares in Iberdrola yesterday edged down about 1% to 10.16, valuing the company at around 50bn (£37.8bn).

Meanwhile, Galan, clearly threatening to square up to anyone even thinking about upsetting his vision of independence, said with characteristic directness that EDF would not be welcome as a shareholder in his company.

Earlier this week, EDF was reportedly mulling over the purchase of a 30% stake in Iberdrola. However, Galan yesterday said: "EDF is not welcome from a political point of view nor from a social point of view, nor from a union ... or shareholder point of view."

He added: "This company is in a position to keep growing ... represented by our 2008-2010 strategic plan.

"We are already a giant in global terms, and we have a healthy balance sheet, which will allow us to finance investments. We will continue to add value in the coming years and in 2008 expect strong or very strong growth."

Galan also stressed that Iberdrola is privately owned - indeed some 7% of its stock and a further 5% in options is controlled by ACS - in contrast with EDF, which is 85%-owned by the French state.

The company also has moved to fend-off a potential bid by asking Spain's energy regulator to limit the stake-holding and voting rights of ACS to 3%, after it emerged that ACS had held talks with EDF about a joint bid.

Galan accused ACS of not being a "true shareholder" of Iberdrola, but rather its biggest competitor in Spain.

"Their interests have been in permanent conflict with the interests of our shareholders," Galan said, and threatened to take the construction giant to court if Iberdrola or its shareholders were hurt by the speculation, which has spurred significant share price volatility.

Bilbao-based Iberdrola, which is Spain's largest utility by market value, posted net profits of 2.4bn for the year to the end of December, compared with 1.7bn a year earlier - boosted largely by the contribution from ScottishPower and in spite of lower Spanish wholesale prices.

Galan said 2008 core earnings will be at least 7bn, some 26% higher than in 2007.

ScottishPower, which Iberdrola acquired last April to give it a foothold in the UK as well as increased wind-driven capacity, contributed about 24%, or 1.4bn, to the Spanish parent's core profits.

Iberdrola also said that fourth-quarter profit climbed 75% because of Scottish Power's contribution and increased by 52% its forecast for savings in 2010 from buying the Glasgow-based utility.

The company said it would invest about 1bn a year in ScottishPower up until 2010, about a quarter of which will be in wind power.

However, annual profits at the company's renewables unit, the world's largest owner of wind parks, fell 38% because Spanish prices dropped. Renewable-energy production, largely from wind power, increased 69% and accounted for 11% of total output.