KKR and RWE make joint bid for Uniper
The pairing puts a financial sponsor alongside a domestic utility in a sale process that has drawn about ten bidders.
Published
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and RWE are jointly bidding for Uniper, the German state-owned energy group, according to the companies.
Berlin is selling a 75% stake in Uniper through a dual-track process that combines a sale with a possible listing, for which Deutsche Bank, Citi and UBS have been appointed as global coordinators, according to mainsights.io. The government took control of Uniper in December 2022 after Russia cut gas supply through the Nord Stream pipelines, forcing the company to buy gas at spot-market prices until it ran out of cash, according to Wikipedia.
As of a June 12 deadline, around ten parties had submitted expressions of interest, including KKR, RWE, Jera, CDPQ, Equinor and a consortium of Brookfield and CPP Investments, with Vattenfall, Fortum, EPH and TotalEnergies also involved, Bloomberg reported via Investing.com. Uniper's works council has opposed a sale outright, arguing that a listing would better preserve the company's independence, according to the same report. Berlin intends to keep about 25% of Uniper for itself to safeguard energy security, and wants the company kept as a single entity, since splitting off assets would breach EU rules, according to mainsights.io and Intenture News.
The KKR-RWE pairing puts a strategic domestic operator alongside a financial sponsor, a combination that sets it apart from the roughly ten other suitors in the race. That could make the consortium a more credible contender as the process moves forward. But with the field still wide and Berlin's terms on the retained stake and single-entity structure unchanged, the bid alone does not meaningfully shift the odds on how the sale of Uniper will end.