Fortum’s bitter lime is now available

The German government announced on Tuesday in the print edition of the Financial Times that it is now officially launching a giant gas and commodity trader Uniperin sales.

The German government had to save Uniper with a huge rescue package of 20 billion euros in the fall of 2022. At that time, Russia had started a full-scale attack on Ukraine, and the country no longer supplied Uniper and Germany with the agreed quantities of gas.

In the rescue package, the black Pekka remained with Uniper’s largest owner For Fortum. It lost its ownership in the nationalization of the company and made at least the purchase price it paid in the change, i.e. losses of around 6.5 billion euros.

For Fortum Saving Uniper was a bitter saga that ruined the growth dreams of Fortum, which had grown to become Finland’s largest company and Europe’s major energy gambler. The Uniper takeover process that started in autumn 2017 did not go well for Fortum Pekka Lundmarkin in terms of not at all as well as the company imagined.

The then and now deceased CEO of Uniper Klaus Schäfer strongly opposed Fortum’s involvement in the company.

In Germany, the CEO’s opposition was and is a much worse threat to the buyer of the company than in Anglo-Saxon countries. Uniper’s takeover by Fortum took years longer than expected, and at the same time, Europe and the world changed differently than expected in 2017.

The decisive change already took place during 2021, when the decline of Russian gas supplies gradually forced Uniper to buy replacement gas from the market at a very high price, so that the company could deliver the promised gas to its customers. However, Uniper was not able to transfer the increased procurement costs to customer prices immediately, and only managed to do so in October 2022.

The problems escalated

The German government itself exacerbated Uniper’s problems, because it did not agree to state the situation as “force majeure” immediately in the winter of 2022, when Russia had attacked Ukraine. In that case, Uniper could have transferred the increased gas prices to the final prices, which could have saved Uniper from the rescue package and at the same time Fortum’s ownership.

Now Germany is about to sell the majority of Uniper. The German state owns about 99 percent of the company and now plans to reduce its ownership to 25 percent and one share. The principle of one share was agreed in connection with the rescue of Uniper.

There is still more than two years until the end of 2028 to trade Uniper.