VERBUND Sells Stake in EKG to Stadtwerke Klagenfurt
Austria’s leading electricity producer is focussing on majority interests with emphasis on hydropower
VERBUND, Austria’s leading electricity company and one of Europe’s largest producers of hydropower, is selling its 49 % stake in the Klagenfurt-based energy service provider, Energie Klagenfurt GmbH (EKG), to Stadtwerke Klagenfurt AG. In future, Stadtwerke Klagenfurt will be the sole owner of the electricity, gas and heat provider EKG again. VERBUND was thereby able to take one more successful step in restructuring the investment portfolio in Austria and the planned disinvestment program - focussing on majority interests with emphasis on hydropower. In its capacity as Carinthia’s largest electricity producer, VERBUND is concentrating in this province on the construction of new hydropower plants, such as the pumped storage power plant Reisseck II, and the optimisation of the hydropower plants on River Drava.
Today, Thursday, saw the signing at the VERBUND AG headquarters in Vienna of the contract for the sale of VERBUND’s stake in Energie Klagenfurt GmbH. In 2005, VERBUND acquired a 49 %stake in Energie Klagenfurt from Stadtwerke Klagenfurt AG. With today’s contractually agreed buyback of the company’s stake by Stadtwerke Klagenfurt AG, the electricity, gas and heat provider is henceforth wholly owned by Stadtwerke Klagenfurt AG once more. Stadtwerke Klagenfurt is paying around 70 million Euro to VERBUND as part of this transaction. The transfer of shares is planned to be completed in 2012 and will have a slightly favourable effect on the VERBUND Group result.
“With the transfer of our stake to this municipal energy service provider, we are taking a further step in restructuring non-strategic minority interests in order to be able to fully concentrate on the reinforcement of our position as the largest hydropower producer in Europe,” said VERBUND CEO Wolfgang Anzengruber on the occasion of the signing of the contract. Stadtwerke Klagenfurt CEO Romed Karré emphasised the fair and cooperative collaboration during the past six years: “The know-how of VERBUND AG and employee commitment were a significant driving force in professionally preparing EKG for the energy turnaround.”
VERBUND is constructing one of Europe’s largest hydropower plant groups in Carinthia
In its capacity as Austria’s leading electricity company and largest electricity producer in Carinthia, VERBUND is concentrating on the development of renewable energies. In Carinthia, the ten VERBUND hydropower plants on the Drava are already able to cover more than half of Carinthia’s annual electricity requirement. And the reservoir and pumped storage power plants of the Malta/Reißeck group provide the secure electricity supply of important equalising current for weather-dependent wind and solar energy.” High above Carinthia’s Möll Valley, at Austria’s largest power plant construction site for the new pumped storage power plant Reißeck II, VERBUND is constructing a “green battery” that will meet all of the demands of the energy turnaround. In this way, Reißeck II will render green electricity from wind and solar power plants storable and feed this energy back into the grid, if the wind and solar power plants are unable to produce any electricity on account of the weather conditions. Upon its commissioning in 2014, the 385-million-Euro pumped power plant Reißeck II will upgrade the existing VERBUND power plant group Malta/Reißeck, making it the most powerful power plant group across Europe.
