(Adds final pricing)
By Emma-Victoria Farr, Lucy Raitano and Christoph Steitz
FRANKFURT/LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) – Siemens Energy brought in 1.259 billion euros ($1.33 billion) via the sale of new shares to help fund its takeover of wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa, the company said on Wednesday.
Siemens Energy in November launched a bid for the remaining stake it did not already own in Siemens Gamesa, frustrated by a number of profit warnings at the division that had become a problem for its parent as well.
The company sold around 72.7 million new shares to institutional investors at 17.32 euros apiece, it said, equating to a discount of 5% to Wednesday’s closing price. Siemens Energy shares had slid 7% on Wednesday in a wide sell-off in stock markets worldwide, closing the day at 18.23 euros per share.
“We are very pleased to see that institutional investors, amongst others BNP Paribas Energy Transition Fund, are confident in our strategy to become the leader in the energy transition,” Siemens Energy Chief Financial Officer Maria Ferraro said.
“The capital increase was almost four times covered. The successful placement of new shares is an important milestone in the refinancing of our cash tender offer for Siemens Gamesa and supports our solid investment grade credit rating,” she added.
Major shareholder Siemens has repeatedly ruled out investing further capital in Siemens Energy.
The share sale means that Siemens Energy’s share capital will be increased by 10% through the issuing of the new shares, which carry full dividend rights for the current fiscal year.
Citigroup and SocGen acted as joint global coordinators on the deal alongside joint bookrunners UniCredit in cooperation with Kepler Cheuvreux and HSBC. ($1 = 0.9455 euros) (Reporting by Emma-Victoria Farr, Lucy Raitano, Christoph Steitz and Alexander Huebner; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Kirsten Donovan and Josie Kao)
Source: finance.yahoo.com
