Uniper is responsible for supplying about 40 percent of all gas used in Germany. Credit...Lennart Preiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Melissa Eddy Sept. 21, 2022, 3:45 a.m. ET BERLIN — The German government on Wednesday announced that it was taking over Uniper, previously the country’s largest importer of Russian gas, to ensure the supply of energy to homes and businesses. The German state will spend 8 billion euros ($7.9 billion) to acquire shares in Uniper it does not already own, giving it a 99 percent stake. Fortum, a Finnish energy company, will sell its majority stake to the German government for €1.70 per share, a fraction of what Uniper’s stock was worth before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, when it traded at around €40 per share. In July, the German government took a 30 percent stake in Uniper and agreed to a €15 billion rescue package to keep it from going under. The company is responsible for supplying about 40 percent of all gas used in Germany, including to hundreds of municipalities that provide heating to homes across the country. The Finnish government has a stake in Fortum, and Helsinki had balked at providing further assistance to the German company. halted all gas deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline in early September. lost €12 billion in the first half of the year, a result of having to pay inflated prices to make up for the Russian shortfall. “Today’s agreement provides clarity on the ownership structure, allows us to continue our business and to fulfill our role as a system-critical energy supplier,” Klaus-Dieter Maubach, Uniper’s chief executive, said in a statement. “The role of gas in Europe has fundamentally changed since Russia attacked Ukraine, and so has the outlook for a gas-heavy portfolio,” Markus Rauramo, Fortum’s chief executive, said in a statement explaining its decision to divest. Fortum’s share price rose 14 percent in early trading in Helsinki. Berlin’s decision to nationalize Uniper is the latest example of governments across Europe unraveling decades of promoting a free-market approach to the electricity and natural gas industries, as lawmakers move to ensure supply in the face of record-high Germany has been buying more natural gas from Norway, the Netherlands and other countries that cool and ship the fuel as liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G. But that has driven prices up to previously unseen levels, with the benchmark European gas contract setting a record high last month. It currently trades at just over €200 per megawatt-hour, down from recent highs but more than double the level in early June. Melissa Eddy is a correspondent based in Berlin who covers German politics, social issues and culture. She came to Germany as a Fulbright scholar in 1996, and previously worked for The Associated Press in Frankfurt, Vienna and the Balkans.
Last week or so I read that also UK is going to nationalize many such infrastructures like energy. Very funny: currently the West becomes the old bad East, and the East becomes the good old West...
Nationalize is also known as bailout. So much capital invested into gas delivery infrastructure and no income, bank or financier will go broke.
Ask Gaddafi if nationalization can become a core policy. Him and his country was destroyed over this exact same policy.
Cause a problem: then 'fix' the problem which makes the problem worse then 'fix' the thing you fucked up which creates new problems which you declare emergency over and take massive new guvvy powerz. Rinse and repeat. Modern government in a nutshell.
German media writes that it is the biggest rescue package for a single company since the 2008 world financial crisis. Rescue of this and some other similar energy companies costing the German taxpayers a whopping €29 billions!!! That's the price for the idiocy of this dumb & incompetent German government, I would say. Deserves it fully! And countless many other companies to rescue and to pay are just waiting in the queue... In German: https://www.manager-magazin.de/unte...rn-ein-a-fd622594-56cb-486f-906a-0bdc7660d68f " Kredite, Garantien, Aktienkäufe Uniper-Rettung kostet Staat 29 Milliarden Euro Der Bund übernimmt Deutschlands größten Gasimporteur Uniper zu rund 99 Prozent – und stellt auch anderen Gasimporteuren Hilfe in Aussicht. Mit insgesamt 29 Milliarden Euro ist es die teuerste Rettung eines einzelnen Unternehmens seit der Finanzkrise. 21.09.2022, 15.18 Uhr [...] "
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