The German state will inject billions of euros to save one of its energy giants, the Uniper group, in particular by taking 30% of the capital of the company threatened with bankruptcy by the drop in Russian gas deliveries , the group announced on Friday.
This rescue plan will lead to “a public participation of around 30%”, Uniper said in a statement. This stake will go through “a capital increase of around 267 million euros for an issue price of 1.70 euros per share”, detailed the group.
“Uniper is a company of capital importance for the economic development of our country and for the energy supply of citizens”, justified Chancellor Olaf Scholz by presenting these emergency measures in the process.
The group will also benefit from a public loan of “up to 7.7 billion euros” in mandatory convertible bonds, that is to say which will eventually become shares, Uniper said.
An extension to “9 billion euros” of the emergency credit line, currently at 2 billion euros, will be released from the public bank KfW, the company added.
Strangled by gas prices, Uniper had been asking for help from the German state for several weeks.
Hundreds of German municipal utilities and energy suppliers depend on deliveries from this group, which supplies them with gas.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz had personally pledged to avoid a bankruptcy of Uniper which would threaten, by domino effect, to dislocate the energy market and cause energy shortages for thousands of customers.
According to Uniper, the State also promised, during the negotiations, that it would introduce “a mechanism allowing (…) to pass on the prices” to customers from “October 1, 2022”.
This measure, demanded by the energy giant for several weeks, might explode the gas bill of German consumers.
Uniper, the leading importer and storer of gas in Germany, has been hit hard by the 60% reduction since mid-June in deliveries of Russian gas by Gazprom to the country.
The company was the main customer of the Russian group in Germany. It must now, to honor its contracts, obtain gas on the spot market where prices have exploded.
Result: Uniper, which employs nearly 12,000 people worldwide, loses “tens of millions of euros” every day, according to its boss.
To cope, the company even began last week to dip into its gas stocks, initially planned for the winter.
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