Gamesa Selling Adwen Stake to Clear Path for Siemens Merger?

Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa has offered to sell its 50% stake in Adwen to its French joint venture partner Areva to remove the last hurdle standing in way of its recently announced merger with Siemens, Spain’s daily Expansion cited unnamed sources as saying.

The sources told Expansion that banks are already carrying out financial valuation of the potential sale.

Initial reports on the potential EUR 13 billion merger suggested that Siemens was interested in acquiring Areva’s 50% stake in Adwen.

However, this deal reportedly fell through after Siemens said that it will not build two manufacturing plants for Adwen wind turbines in France, as was previously agreed between the joint venture partners and the French government.

Gamesa and Areva received commitments from the French government that Adwen’s 8MW wind turbines will be used for projects offshore France totaling 1.5GW on condition that the turbines are built in France.

Siemens justified its decision not to commit to building the two plants by arguing that these commitments are not a definite guarantee that the contracts for these projects will actually be signed.

Gamesa and Areva formed the Adwen joint venture in March 2015, with both companies investing around EUR 200 million in the project.

Offshore WIND Staff