Germany’s Uniper Posts $39 Billion Loss, Highlighting Ukraine War’s Corporate Fallout
BERLIN—Energy giant
Uniper SE
UN01 -4.19%
posted a net loss of around $39.3 billion for the first nine months of the year—one of the biggest in Germany’s corporate history—highlighting the financial fallout from Russia’s decision to throttle natural-gas deliveries to Europe.
The company, which is soon to be nationalized by Germany in an attempt to stabilize it and protect its customers, said Thursday it was finalizing the details of additional state-support measures.
Russia has cut gas supplies to Europe in what Western officials say is an economic attack in retaliation for their support for Ukraine. The impact has spread across countries and businesses, boosting energy prices and threatening to tip Germany and other nations into a recession.
Uniper, which was Germany’s largest importer of Russian gas before the war, has become a major corporate casualty. By deciding to nationalize it, Berlin has moved to save a systemically important company as Europe’s races to shift away from its decadeslong reliance on Russian fossil fuels.
“Our half-year numbers already indicated that this has left massive scars in our financial results,” Chief Financial Officer
Tiina Tuomela
said. “Implementing the stabilization package therefore has the highest priority.”
Since the start of 2022, Uniper’s shares have lost around 92% of their value. The stock was trading down 2% Thursday.
Earlier this year, with gas prices at record levels, Uniper was recording losses of more than 100 million euros a day—equivalent to around $98 million—for gas purchases. Because of the company’s impending nationalization, Uniper’s losses will ultimately be borne by German taxpayers.
The company said the net loss includes roughly 10 billion euros to replace gas volumes on the spot market, where prices have hit records, and another roughly 31 billion euros worth of future gas replacement procurement.
Net debt in the period soared to around 10.9 billion euros, from 324 million euros, mostly due to negative operating cash flow stemming from Russian supply cuts.
Uniper said it was working intensively to restructure its gas portfolio to minimize risks and to end losses resulting from Russian gas curtailments by 2024.
The German government said in September it would take a 99% stake in the energy giant and inject billions of euros to safeguard it. Berlin will acquire the stake of Uniper’s parent company, Finnish utility
Fortum Oyj.
Uniper said any additional support will be covered by supplementary measures as part of the government’s stabilization package. An extraordinary general meeting for shareholders’ approval of the capital increase is set to take place in December.
Write to Georgi Kantchev at [email protected]
Corrections & Amplifications
Uniper posted a net loss of around $39 billion for the first nine months of the year. An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the company as Unipers. (Corrected on Nov. 3)
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
BERLIN—Energy giant
Uniper SE
UN01 -4.19%
posted a net loss of around $39.3 billion for the first nine months of the year—one of the biggest in Germany’s corporate history—highlighting the financial fallout from Russia’s decision to throttle natural-gas deliveries to Europe.
The company, which is soon to be nationalized by Germany in an attempt to stabilize it and protect its customers, said Thursday it was finalizing the details of additional state-support measures.
Russia has cut gas supplies to Europe in what Western officials say is an economic attack in retaliation for their support for Ukraine. The impact has spread across countries and businesses, boosting energy prices and threatening to tip Germany and other nations into a recession.
Uniper, which was Germany’s largest importer of Russian gas before the war, has become a major corporate casualty. By deciding to nationalize it, Berlin has moved to save a systemically important company as Europe’s races to shift away from its decadeslong reliance on Russian fossil fuels.
“Our half-year numbers already indicated that this has left massive scars in our financial results,” Chief Financial Officer
Tiina Tuomela
said. “Implementing the stabilization package therefore has the highest priority.”
Since the start of 2022, Uniper’s shares have lost around 92% of their value. The stock was trading down 2% Thursday.
Earlier this year, with gas prices at record levels, Uniper was recording losses of more than 100 million euros a day—equivalent to around $98 million—for gas purchases. Because of the company’s impending nationalization, Uniper’s losses will ultimately be borne by German taxpayers.
The company said the net loss includes roughly 10 billion euros to replace gas volumes on the spot market, where prices have hit records, and another roughly 31 billion euros worth of future gas replacement procurement.
Net debt in the period soared to around 10.9 billion euros, from 324 million euros, mostly due to negative operating cash flow stemming from Russian supply cuts.
Uniper said it was working intensively to restructure its gas portfolio to minimize risks and to end losses resulting from Russian gas curtailments by 2024.
The German government said in September it would take a 99% stake in the energy giant and inject billions of euros to safeguard it. Berlin will acquire the stake of Uniper’s parent company, Finnish utility
Fortum Oyj.
Uniper said any additional support will be covered by supplementary measures as part of the government’s stabilization package. An extraordinary general meeting for shareholders’ approval of the capital increase is set to take place in December.
Write to Georgi Kantchev at [email protected]
Corrections & Amplifications
Uniper posted a net loss of around $39 billion for the first nine months of the year. An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the company as Unipers. (Corrected on Nov. 3)
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Denial of responsibility! Techno Blender is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.