REpower Brushes Aside Suzlon And Welcomes Areva's Takeover Offer

The bidding war for REpower (Deutsche Börse: RPW) continued as its supervisory board and management declared their approval for the EUR 140 offer submitted by French nuclear group Areva.

It recommended that the shareholders accept the offer citing two reasons. Firstly, 'as Areva would be an appropriate strategic partner for the accelerated growth in the international wind energy industry' and secondly as the price offered by Areva (PAR: AREVA) is EUR 14 higher than that offered by competing Indian wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon (NSE: SUZLON).

The supervisory board also decided to increase its share capital by up to EUR 0.8m from EUR 8.1m to EUR 8.9m by issuing new shares. The new shares will be issued to REpower shareholders by HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt at a price of EUR 136 apiece in the form of an indirect subscription right.

will be issued from 26 March 2007 to 10 April 2007. The subscription ratio is 10:1 which means one new share can be acquired for every ten REpower shares held.

Any remaining shares not sold after the offer period will be offered by the issuing bank to qualified investors as a private placement or will be sold on the stock exchange.

The company stated that the capital raised will be used to pre-finance European offshore projects for which REpower is at an advanced stage of negotiations.

By: New Energy Finance

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