April 20 (Reuters) – German energy company SEFE said on Monday it has proposed a capital increase of up to 2 billion euros ($2.35 billion) to start \u200ca privatisation process under which the state must cut its shareholding to a \u200cblocking minority by the end of 2028.<\/p>\n
Formerly owned by Russia’s Gazprom, SEFE was rescued by Germany in a \u200b6.3-billion-euro nationalisation during Europe’s energy crisis in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
SEFE said such a capital increase, if approved, could be implemented over the next nine to 12 months.<\/p>\n
It said it had proposed the capital increase of 1.5 billion to 2 billion euros to \u200cGermany’s Economy Ministry, which oversees \u2060Berlin’s ownership of the company, and that talks over the matter were underway.<\/p>\n
A vital part of Germany’s gas supply, SEFE – which stands for \u2060Securing Energy for Europe – operates 4,200 km (2,610 miles), or 10%, of Germany’s gas network system. It is also an energy trader.<\/p>\n
European Union rules require Germany to cut its stake to no \u200bmore than \u200b25% plus one share by 2028 in exchange \u200bfor allowing the 2022 bailout, a \u200ccondition that also applies to Berlin’s 99.12% ownership of SEFE’s peer Uniper.<\/p>\n
The German Economy Ministry said it was exploring several options as part of SEFE’s planned reprivatisation, adding no decisions had been taken yet and that there was no firm timeframe.<\/p>\n
SEFE CEO Egbert Laege told the Financial Times, which first reported the capital increase plans, that the Iran \u200cwar had lent momentum to the privatisation plans, with \u200bconstrained Middle East gas flows highlighting the importance \u200bof reliable suppliers.<\/p>\n
Germany plans to dilute \u200bits SEFE holding after the initial capital increase, potentially via another selloff, \u200can initial public offering or other \u200boptions, Laege added.<\/p>\n
“Given the \u200bshort time in which we’re operating, maybe the IPO is a bit difficult for us but in the end this is up to the markets and it’s \u200ba decision for the government,” \u200che said.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8502 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru, Christoph Steitz in \u200bFrankfurt and Holger Hansen in Berlin; additional reporting by Alexander Ratz; editing by \u200bRonojoy Mazumdar, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 20 (Reuters) – German energy company SEFE said on Monday it has proposed a capital increase of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5849,461,5,5850,4934],"class_list":{"0":"post-5921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-capital-increase","9":"tag-economy-ministry","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-privatisation-plans","12":"tag-sefe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}