RWE's U-Turn on Splitting Forced by Merkel's Love of Green Power
- Flailing shares have restricted access to capital markets
- Plan ``is paving the way to renationalization'': Metzler
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It took RWE AG a whole year and a 63 percent decline in its share price to come to its senses.
On Dec. 1 2014, the day after German competitor EON SE announced it was splitting into two independent companies, the country’s biggest power producer said it had no such plans. In an about-turn on Tuesday, reeling from a 29 percent profit decline in the nine months through September and facing the specter of impairments, RWE said it’s pooling its renewables, grid and retail operations into a separate company, part of which it will sell in an initial public offering at the end of next year.