Vestas Says Strategic Talks With Mitsubishi Heavy Are Ongoing

Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world’s largest wind turbine maker, said talks with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011) about “strategic cooperation” are ongoing.

“I can confirm the talks are still existing,” Morten Albaek, the company’s chief marketing officer, said yesterday in an interview in Sydney, declining to comment further on the discussions first announced in August.

Some analysts have speculated that the chances of a deal between Vestas and Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Heavy are fading. Aarhus, Denmark-based Vestas is seeking to return to a profit as overcapacity in the industry squeezes margins.

“As time passes, the likelihood of a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries deal has dwindled,” Daniel Patterson, a SEB AB analyst in Copenhagen, said earlier.

Vestas’s bid to form a venture with Mitsubishi may be held up because of delays in connecting turbine projects to the grid in Germany, Nordea Bank AB said last month.

Any partnership between Vestas and Mitsubishi Heavy would coincide with a push by Japan to encourage more development of renewable energy.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Paton in Sydney at jpaton4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.net