Morgan Stanley kicks off tender offer for Germany's PNE

The acceptance period for the voluntary public takeover offer targeting the stock of German renewables company PNE AG (ETR:PNE3) was initiated on October 31.

Photon Management GmbH, an indirect fully-owned unit of funds managed and advised by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Inc and part of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP), published the offer document on Thursday following approval by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, better known as BaFin.

PNE’s shareholders can now accept the all-cash bid of EUR 4.00 (USD 4.47) per share until November 28, 2019, when the acceptance period ends. The offer values PNE’s equity at EUR 306 million and is based on a total enterprise value of about EUR 360 million. It represents a premium of 31% to the closing stock price of PNE on August 26, the day before the wind power specialist unveiled a non-binding proposal from MSIP.

The investor has already secured 14.9% of the shares, including the stake of the largest shareholder, and is targeting an acceptance level of at least 50% plus one share under the tender offer.

“With our investment, we intend to accelerate PNE’s growth as a sustainable and competitive renewable energy platform, supporting progress towards achieving the renewable energy targets of governments in PNE’s core markets,” stated Christoph Oppenauer, executive director at MSIP based in Frankfurt.

The core business of PNE is project development. As at the end of June 2019, the company had 4,952 MW of onshore wind projects in different phases of development across 14 countries. In the final phase -- implementation -- are projects totalling 41 MW and all of them are located in Germany.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.117)

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