(In the 7th paragraph it is clarified that Tytti Tuppurainen is Minister rpt Minister. In addition, in the 4th and 5th paragraphs the state aid plans have been updated.)
FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX Broker) – The prospect of imminent state aid for Uniper brought the badly battered shares of the ailing energy company further double-digit price gains on Wednesday. After the shares had already increased by a good ten percent the day before, they recently went up by almost 14 percent to EUR 11.84.
While speculation circulated on Tuesday about the resumption of Russian gas supplies after maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, the focus today is on a possible rescue operation by the group. Whether gas will flow through the pipeline again remained unclear in the middle of the week. There were contradictory signals from Russia on this.
The energy supplier had come under pressure because of the throttling of Russian gas supplies through the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1. At the beginning of the week, a multi-billion credit line from the state development bank KfW was fully exhausted and additional funds were applied for.
Now the measures to save the ailing energy company are taking more and more shape. The existing loans from the state KfW bank would have to be increased from 2 to 8 billion euros, according to a paper by the Bundestag Committee for Climate Protection and Energy, which is available to the German Press Agency. This is necessary in order to provide short-term liquidity for replacement gas purchases and to secure so-called margining positions. Margining are reserves that suppliers have to deposit for transactions on the energy exchanges.
According to the paper, the federal government is also planning to take a stake of up to 30 percent. This is to be achieved through a combination of a capital increase and further hybrid equity. The aim here is to cover the accumulated losses at the Düsseldorf group.
A retailer rated the action positively and specified: “Germany is considering investing more than 5 billion euros, with the total commitment probably amounting to less than 10 billion euros.” He also added that according to the “Handelsblatt”, the rescue package for Uniper will be discussed again this Friday at a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in order to reach an agreement by next Monday, July 25th.
JPMorgan analyst Vincent Ayral also pointed to the limited role that majority shareholder and parent company Fortum intends to play in the matter. The Finnish Minister for European Affairs, who is also responsible for state holdings, Tytti Tuppurainen, emphasized after a parliamentary hearing that an agreement must not lead to an additional burden for Finnish taxpayers. The starting point for this is that Fortum, as the main owner of Uniper, will no longer make any new capital injections.
According to Ayral, this suggests that the dilution of Fortum’s stake is likely to be the price the Finnish company will have to pay – “with the potential risk of Uniper being deconsolidated, depending on the final details of the bailout”./ck/bek /mis
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
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