UPDATE:RWE To Sell 75% Stake In Amprion To Financial Consortium
July 14 2011 - 10:52AM
Dow Jones News
German utility RWE AG (RWE.XE) said Thursday it will sell a
stake of about 75% in its German power transmission network
business Amprion GmbH to a consortium of financial investors for
about EUR1.3 billion.
The sale to the consortium, which consists of insurance
companies and special pension funds, is expected to be completed in
the third-quarter of 2011. It is also subject to the approval of
RWE's supervisory board as well as the anti-trust authorities.
The consortium is managed by Commerz Real AG, a unit of
Commerzbank AG (CBK.XE), while members are companies belonging to
Munich Re AG (MUV2.XE) and ERGO, represented by MEAG, Swiss Life
Holding AG (SLHN.VX), Talanx AG and the Westfalen-Lippe doctors'
pension fund.
Initially, the company will take a shareholding of 15% in the
consortium, in addition to its minority shareholding of 25%, which
will give it a further indirect share in Amprion of about 11%.
In June, the company had agreed in principle to sell just under
75% of its power-grid unit, known as Amprion, to Commerzbank AG
(CBK.XE), several people familiar with the matter told Dow Jones
Newswires.
Commerz Real AG will temporarily hold the equivalent of a 13%
stake in Amprion and sell this shareholding to further investors in
the short term.
As planned, RWE would retain just over 25% shareholding in
Amprion.
With around 11,000 kilometers of power lines, RWE's grid is
Germany's largest with an enterprise value of EUR1.3 billion as of
Jan. 1 2011.
After the completion of the deal, Amprion will be deconsolidated
and RWE's investment volume for network expansion will decrease by
about EUR2.5 billion over the coming 10 years, the company
said.
RWE would be the third of four German power-transmission-grid
operators to sell its network in the last year. Rivals E.ON AG
(EOAN.XE) and Vattenfall Europe sold their networks last year.
The sale would be part of RWE's ongoing divestiture program,
under which the company seeks to sell assets worth up to EUR8
billion by the end of 2013.
At 1408 GMT, Shares of RWE traded up 0.9% at EUR36.18.
-By Neetha Mahadevan, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 2972 5507;
neetha.mahadevan@dowjones.com
(Eyk Henning contributed to this article)
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