The European Commission has just approved a consolidation of the ownership in the energy company Energi Danmark. The cooperatively-owned energy and fibre-optic group Andel becomes the majority shareholder with an ownership interest of 63.6 percent, and the cooperatively-owned NRGi’s ownership interest will in future make up the remaining 36.4 percent.
Andel has made an important step in the group’s strategy towards 2025. In this, one of the ambitions is to become Denmark’s largest energy supplier to public sector companies and corporate customers, which will be realised with the increase of its ownership in Energi Danmark, which is Denmark’s largest operator in the market for trading electricity to corporate customers.
Jesper Hjulmand, CEO of Andel, sees a large potential in the increased ownership in Energi Danmark, also seen in relation to Andel’s visions for the green transition of society.
”Denmark and large parts of Europe are working on a pervasive transition and electrification as a result of an increasingly larger share of renewable energy. This is positive for the green transition, but it requires a fundamental change in the way in which we use and view energy. One of the key aspects of reaching the target of a 70-percent reduction of CO2 by 2030 is to intensify the work on balancing production and consumption”, he says and elaborates:
“Energi Danmark’s customer portfolio constitutes a significant part of Denmark’s energy consumption, and the company has a decisive task in developing solutions which, popularly said, move the consumption of the large energy customers to the hours at which the green power is produced, so that we utilise the renewable energy in the best possible way.”
Strengthened business model
Andel has grown significantly in recent years – among other things through its acquisition of Radius Elnet and Ørsted’s residential customer and exterior lighting business in 2020 – and the company has obtained the strategic and financial strength to drive further consolidation in the energy industry.
”We are working on strengthening our presence and volume in the entire value chain of the energy industry – from energy production over infrastructure to energy sale to end customers to strengthen the group’s stable business model. The increased ownership in Energi Danmark helps strengthening Andel’s competitiveness and our possibilities of gaining synergies across the companies of the Andel group by further focusing our subsidiaries and consolidating our core activities in the relevant subsidiaries ”, Jesper Hjulmand says.
New strategic priorities among the former owners
The background for the change in ownership is the consolidation in the energy industry and an increased focus on business activities and new strategic priorities among the owners, which have resulted in the owners wishing to divest as well as to increase their ownership interest.
Withdrawing from the ownership are: Energi Nord Holding (18.4% – owned by Norlys and Nord Energi), EWII Energi (16.5%), SEF Energi (1.1%) and Fonden Langelands Elforsyning (0.4 %).
The parties have agreed not to publish the conditions nor the financial circumstances related to the transaction.
With the approval by the authorities the change of ownership is concluded Monday, November 1.
About Energi Danmark
Energi Danmark has approximately 225 employees, and in 2020 the company had a revenue just short of DKK 45 billion and is one of Denmark’s leading energy trading groups with activities within physical and financial electricity trading, carbon emissions trading, gas trading, wind energy and portfolio management. Today, Energi Danmark is Denmark’s largest operator in the market for trading electricity to corporate customers and it has subsidiaries in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany and is planning to further expand in the Nordic countries as well as the rest of Europe. The company has a solid group of owners and is actively participating in ensuring and further developing a well-functioning electricity and energy trading market in Northern Europe.
