MVV Energie and Juwi pool forces to expand renewable energies

GERMANY: The Mannheim-based energy company MVV Energie and the Rheinland-Pfalz project developer Juwi (Wörrstadt) aim to forge a close partnership in expanding renewable energies. As announced by MVV Energie on Thursday morning following a meeting of its Supervisory Board, by participating in a capital increase at Juwi AG the company intends to acquire a 50.1 percent stake in the German renewable energies market leader.

Scheduled for completion by the end of the year, the transaction is conditional on successful implementation of the financing concept with participation of the banks and other financing parties involved, as well as on approval by the Federal Cartel Office. The two companies have agreed confidentiality concerning further financial and organisational details.

According to Dr. Georg Müller, CEO of MVV Energie, the new participation represented a major step for the Mannheim-based group of companies within its MVV 2020 strategic realignment launched in 2009.

He said, "The transformation currently underway in the German energy supply is all about combining renewable and conventional energies as key pillars of the future energy system in a way that makes both economic and ecological sense."

Here, MVV Energie saw itself as a pioneer and driver of this change and covered the entire energy industry value chain within its group of companies. This cooperation represented a historic milestone in the German energy industry. "Others talk about the energy turnaround. We are making it happen," he added

Juwi is known as a pioneer of renewable energies in Germany. By drawing on innovations and its own expertise, it has become the market leader in developing wind and solar projects. Based in Wörrstadt in Rheinland-Pfalz, the company was founded in 1996 and now has around 1,000 employees worldwide. In recent years, Juwi has generated annual sales of up to one billion euros.

Due to changes in the market climate, the company has recently encountered financing difficulties and reacted by introducing a far-reaching restructuring programme and streamlining its organisational processes.

"Once this restructuring is complete," commented MVV CEO, Dr. Müller, "Juwi will complement our own activities and acquisitions in our further growth-driven expansion in renewable energies." This strategic cooperation would offer the stability and development prospects necessary for Juwi, its project partners and new interested parties.

"Together with Juwi, we aim to expand renewable energies on an economically viable, reliable basis and thus help the energy turnaround succeed." On this basis, Juwi would now be able to consistently work on implementing its well-filled project pipeline, as well as on further marketing projects to interested investors.

Juwi's two founders, Fred Jung and Matthias Willenbacher, will in future hold a combined 49.9 percent stake in Juwi AG. For them, the new partnership will successfully "combine the energy industry know-how of a forward-looking energy group with the expertise of an experienced renewable energies project developer. This constellation is so far unique in the German market."

According to its CEO, MVV Energie is at the same time extending its non-investment service business - from asset management via operations management through to direct marketing. Since the spring, MVV Energie has thus assumed the direct marketing of electricity generated at those renewable energies plants at Juwi that do not form part of the current participation process.

Dr. Müller added that these activities are being flanked by current projects aimed at smartly linking renewable and conventional generation plants using innovative components. "This area harbours promising opportunities for new business models, especially in the field of decentralised energy management. We are working on this closely both with partners from within the energy industry and partners from other sectors who are leaders in their respective markets."