Nordex Procures Money

Nordex doesn't make it out of the headlines: The company is still in trouble due to the Corona crisis and requires state guarantees for a working capital loan of EUR 350 million. This was announced at the beginning of last week. According to the announcement, almost half of the sum, 175 million euros, would be guaranteed by the federal government, 116 million euros by the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the what's left by the City of Hamburg. In both countries, the company employs a total of almost 2500 people.

In the meantime, the Finance Committee of the Schwerin State Parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has given green light for its share of the million-euro guarantee, while the Hamburg Senate is still hesitant about the issue, according to press reports.

Then on Friday a further announcement: Apparently Nordex wants to accelerate the creation of value from part of its proprietary project portfolio with a single transaction and sell the European project development portfolio of 2.7 GW to utility RWE.

The pipeline includes projects in France, Spain, Sweden and Poland. The focus is on France with 1.9 GW of planned projects in various stages of development. About 15% of the total pipeline is close to the final investment decision (FID) or is in an advanced stage of development. 230 MW are secured by contracts for difference (CfDs) or similar feed-in tariffs. The purchase price is around EUR 402.5 million, as Nordex announced today, Monday.

“The quality of the underlying assets and our consistent development track record have resulted in a strong interest for our project development pipeline from multiple market participants crystallising an excellent outcome for Nordex. We are grateful to our project development team for delivering this outcome and we have every confidence it will continue its success story with RWE”, comments José Luis Blanco, CEO of Nordex Group, on this important milestone. “Significant proceeds from this transaction would strengthen our balance sheet as we continue to build on our strong order book and capture market opportunities with our Delta 4000 product portfolio,” he adds.

”The planned acquisition of this leading European renewables developer will strengthen our position in France, one of our target markets. It represents a unique growth opportunity for RWE due to its large and attractive existing project pipeline and strong development platform. Thus, we underline our ambition to grow in our role as one of the globally leading companies in the renewables sector,” says Markus Krebber, CFO of RWE AG.

Nordex stock shot up in the wake of the announcements.