Dong Energy Plans IPO
Danish energy group Dong Energy announced May 12 plans to make an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares this summer on the Nasdaq Copenhagen exchange. According to a company statement, the listing will be completed before the end of first quarter of 2017.
It has cancelled IPO plans three times before due to sharp fluctuations in financial markets.
The Kingdom of Denmark, as majority shareholder, will sell part of its current shareholding in the IPO, while maintaining a 50.1% shareholding in Dong after the IPO. Dong said the intended IPO is expected to consist of a sale of at least 15% of the existing shares in the company held by current shareholders, adding that no new share capital will be issued in the IPO.
Meanwhile, Denmark's Minister of Finance, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, said that the IPO process has the broad support in the Parliament.
"We have a robust and highly visible build-out plan for offshore wind, which will deliver strong and profitable growth in the coming years. Our focus on renewable energy has turned Dong Energy into one of the fastest growing energy groups in Europe with almost two-thirds of operating income generated outside of Denmark," Dong CEO Henrik Poulsen said in the statement.
The company was once one of Europe's most coal-intensive power generators but sold these plants off and focused instead on oil, gas and wind power, and now is a world leader in offshore wind with 26% share of globally installed offshore wind capacity, plus oil and gas fields in Denmark, Norway and the UK.
The company is currently 58.8% state-owned, but US bank Goldman Sachs-controlled New Energy Investment has a 17.9% stake. However on April 28, the European Commission cleared the Danish state to acquire sole control of Dong. Other minority shareholders remaining are SEAS-NVE Holding A/S (10.8%), ATP (4.9%) and others (7.6%).
Dong Energy's 1Q 2016 net profit was DKK 5.2bn (€700mn), Dkr 3.5bn higher than in 1Q 2015 which was impacted by write-downs.
It provided 2016 full-year earnings (Ebitda) guidance of DKK 20bn-DKK 23bn (€2.7bn-€3.1bn), with wind power earnings guidance of DKK 11-12bn (€1.5bn-1.6bn). It expects to make gross investments of DKK 18-21bn (€2.4bn-2.8bn) this year, while the total gross investment expectation for 2017-2020 is DKK 60-70bn (€8.1bn-9.4bn).
Murat Basboga