Siemens Gamesa has reached an agreement to acquire plum European assets from Senvion for €200m.
The deal covers a “large part” of the latter’s European onshore service business – totalling 8.9GW – as well as all associated assets and operations, all the intellectual property of Senvion and an onshore blade manufacturing plant in Vagos, Portugal.
Siemens Gamesa said the servicing business will diversify its offering and geographical mix “with contracts that offer long-term visibility and renewal rates that have historically been very high”.
Senvion’s IP will allow the German-Spanish company to “further enhance its technology portfolio”, while the Portuguese plant is a competitive site that will reduce its dependency on Asian suppliers.
Some 2000 Senvion employees will join Siemens Gamesa as part of the deal.
Subject to obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals and achieving other closing conditions, Siemens Gamesa expects to close the respective acquisition of assets by March, starting with the service unit by end fourth quarter 2019.
Senvion said business continuation costs, salaries and wages for employees are secured through ongoing business activities until this time.
The deal will have no impact on financial performance in fiscal 2019 for Siemens Gamesa.
“This transaction is an important step forward for Siemens Gamesa,” said chief executive Markus Tacke.
“Bringing Senvion´s service assets on board will help us to drive growth in a key market segment and add important capacity in Germany and other important European markets, while the blade factory helps us mitigate the risk in the difficult trade environment.
“We´re bringing good people and good business into the company and that´s a win for all parties.”
Senvion said the wind-down process has begun for other parts of its business “in order to secure socially acceptable solutions for remaining employees and an orderly liquidation of remaining assets”.
“As announced earlier, some wind turbine continuation projects are being finalised, securing further jobs with some going until the middle of the next year. For other assets, including Indian operations and non-European Service operations, explorative talks with potential investors continue,” the company added.
Chief executive Yves Rannou said: “We are pleased that we have been able to give our colleagues in a large part of the European onshore services business and in our blade production facility in Portugal positive news today, securing close to 60% of all jobs for now.”
He said the process “has been a long and demanding path in a challenging context and in the face of many difficulties”.
“The new environment will protect the critical competencies and skills that were developed at Senvion and enable our employees to make long-term and valuable contributions to the energy transition.”
Rannou thanked Senvion customers and Siemens Gamesa for their support over recent months.
“Finally, I sincerely thank everyone who made Senvion what it was for decades: a pioneer in the provision of clean power to the world. We will now continue our efforts to pursue potential options for other business parts to find solutions for as many employees as possible.”