(Nov 5): Uniper SE has taken its first steps to repay the German government for a historic bailout at the height of the energy crisis as Berlin prepares to sell it.
The utility set aside about €3 billion (RM14.22 billion) in provisions in recent quarters linked to the nationalisation and said Tuesday that it already paid the state €530 million in late September. That particular sum reflected realised claims for damages against Russia’s Gazprom PJSC after Uniper won an arbitration ruling earlier this year that allowed it to cancel payment obligations to its former supplier.
The rest of the provisions — valued at just under €2.5 billion as of September, down from €2.9 billion in June — will be assessed based on full-year results and transferred to the state in early 2025, it said in a statement.
Uniper’s bailout in 2022 was one of the largest rescues in the country’s corporate history. At the time, the company — once the biggest buyer of Russian gas in Germany — was forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros a day for alternative supplies and was only able to do so with state support.
Berlin now owns more than 99% of Uniper but agreed at the time of the nationalisation to reduce its holding to a maximum of 25% plus one share by 2028. In September, Germany’s finance ministry said it was preparing to re-privatise the company, with a share sale being its preferred option.
The government recently appointed Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and UBS Group AG as joint global coordinators on the potential offering, Bloomberg News reported in October.
Uniper said earnings remain in line with a more positive outlook presented in August, putting it on stable footing for a potential sale. The firm expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of €1.9 billion to €2.4 billion in 2024 and generated €2.2 billion in the first nine months.
While that’s well below 2023’s results, the company’s earnings have made a substantial recovery since the energy crisis.
“Uniper’s nine-month operating performance was stable in an increasingly normalised market environment,” Uniper’s chief financial officer Jutta Dönges said. “We can therefore reaffirm our outlook for the 2024 financial year that we revised upward in August.”
Uploaded by Arion Yeow