The E.On and RWE asset swap has edged closer after the former successfully completed a voluntary public takeover offer to minority shareholders of RWE’s innogy unit.
At the end of the acceptance period, which closed last week, 9.4% of innogy shareholders elected to sell their holdings in the company to E.On. When combined with RWE’s 76.8% stake in innogy, which E.On is taking on, the utility will own 86.2% of innogy shares.
Marc Spieker, chief financial officer at E.On, said the result was satisfying and would pave the way for an integration process that is now underway.
E.On said it doesn’t expect to complete the deal before the middle of next year.
Earlier this month the two parties published an integration strategy designed to leverage synergies which the two companies value at between €600 and €800 million, one that will also “tap growth potential for the new E.On”, as Spieker added.
Rumoured for some time, RWE and E.On confirmed their intent to push through a major exchange of business activities in March this year. That deal, centred around the changing of hands of RWE’s innogy, is to see RWE strengthen its grip on Europe’s utility-scale renewables sector while E.On will take on innogy’s consumer-facing solutions and networks operations.
The deal would place the duo at “the heart of the energy transition”, the firms said earlier this year.
