E.ON has closed the purchase of a 76.8% stake in innogy from RWE, shortly after the European Commission approved the transaction.
E.ON and RWE have been engaged in an asset swap since March 2018 in which E.ON takes over the 76.8% stake in innogy, while RWE obtains, among other things, all E.ON’s major renewable energy activities and innogy’s renewable energy business, as well as a 16.7% minority stake in E.ON.
Now, the purchase of a total of 426,624,685 shares is closed and E.ON plans to also close the voluntary public takeover offer to innogy’s minority shareholders until the end of next week.
By the end of the acceptance period last July, 9.4% of the shareholders had decided to sell their shares and will now receive the offer consideration.
E.ON recently announced it intends to acquire the shares of the remaining minority shareholders by a merger squeeze-out to become the only shareholder. Together with the 3.8% shares acquired on the stock exchange, the company holds 90% of all innogy shares and thus fulfills the requirements for the squeeze-out.
“Our goal is a swift and direct integration of innogy into E.ON. The completion of the take-over of innogy is the decisive step in the realignment of our company,” said E.ON-CEO Johannes Teyssen .
RWE received approval from Brussels and Bonn in February for the takeover of E.ON’s and innogy’s renewables businesses and for the planned acquisition of a stake in E.ON.
Following the completion of the acquisition, RWE will operate approximately 8GW of renewable energy assets, including offshore wind.