Germany's PNE to place EUR-50m corporate bond

German wind power-focused renewables developer PNE AG (ETR:PNE3) said today it intends to place a EUR-50-million (USD 52.8m) corporate bond to refinance some existing bonds and fund the company’s growth.

The new bond will have a term of five years from June 23, 2022, until June 23, 2027, and a coupon range of 4.500% to 5.250%. IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG serves as the sole lead manager for the transaction.

PNE said it wants to refinance early the 2018/2023 bonds due on May 2, 2023, and to also raise money to finance both organic and inorganic growth. The company continues its plan to build up a wind farm portfolio of about 500 MW for its own operations by next year.

An exchange offer will be launched on May 23, 2022, allowing holders of the 2018/2023 bonds to exchange their bonds for new ones. They will have a multiple-purchase option that allows them to subscribe to further bonds in excess of their holdings. It will start on the same date and both will run until June 13, 2022. The subscription period for the public offer will begin on June 7 and end on June 15, 2022.

Meanwhile, at the annual general meeting that took place on Wednesday, PNE’s shareholders resolved to expand the supervisory board to seven members, reelect Christoph Oppenauer and Marcel Egger to the board and add Roberta Benedetti and Marc van't Noordende. The latter is an operating partner at Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP)

Activist investor and one of the largest minority shareholders of PNE, namely Enkraft, previously opposed the proposed election of Marc van't Noordende, stating that this move would give fellow stockholder Morgan Stanley further control over the company’s supervisory board.

After the meeting, PNE pointed out that an objection was declared on the record with regard to the expansion of the supervisory board and the election of Van't Noordende.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.056)

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