The U.S. based financial investor Kawa Capital Management, Inc., is about to acquire the Conergy sales and service units in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia. The respective purchase agreement is expected to be signed on 1 October 2013. By the end of August, Kawa already acquired the Conergy sales entities in the U.S., Canada, Singapore and Thailand in the first step. Taking into account administrative, management and infrastructure functions of Conergy AG supporting the international subsidiaries, Kawa thereby secures a total of 350 jobs, 210 thereof in the international units and 140 in Germany.
The Conergy subsidiaries in Spain, France, Greece, India and Czech Republic with a total of 110 staff are not part of the transaction.
Transaction expected to be executed just after opening of the insolvency proceedings
The opening of the insolvency proceedings as well as the approval of the creditor committee are necessary preconditions for the implementation of the acquisition. Both, the creditor committee as well as the banks have already indicated their approval of the sale of the subsidiaries. The insolvency administrator plans to apply to the district court of Hamburg for opening the insolvency proceedings on 1 October 2013. The approval by the creditor committee is expected to occur also on 1 October.
Comberg: “Conergy first company to offer power plants, services and financing.”
“Together with Kawa, we are setting the course for Conergy’s future with this second step”, said Conergy CEO Dr. Philip Comberg. “Our Asian and North American units are already operating very successfully in the new setup and we are convinced that we will succeed doing so with our European and Australian entities as well. As the first company we do not only offer solar power plants and services from one single source in the future. Working with Kawa, we will also be able to offer the necessary financing solutions and funding for the projects. This has always been our target. With Kawa as our new owner the last missing piece of the jigsaw of our strategy is now falling into place. This opens up great chances and interesting future potential for Conergy.”
Kawa Partner Andrew de Pass: “We are breaking new ground and expand our business.”
With this acquisition, we will have the necessary know-how in-house for the engineering, planning, construction and the management of solar power plants on a truly global scale”, said Kawa Partner Andrew de Pass. “We are breaking new ground and expanding our asset management business to include the fast growing solar asset class. Photovoltaic is a very interesting asset class, however, it requires profound and complex know how. With our Conergy experts we can guarantee our customers secure investments – in the right projects, in the right quality of both, systems and services, at the right conditions and attractive return-on-investment. The strategic acquisitions of Conergy are therefore a milestone for our asset management business.”
Undritz: “We are very content with the solution in place for most of the employees.”
“We are very content that we found a great solution for the majority of the employees in Conergy’s global sales and service units”, said the insolvency administrator Dr. Sven-Holger Undritz from the Hamburg law firm White & Case. “At the same time, however, we very much regret that we could not secure all jobs of the Conergy group and that we have to lay off a significant number of highly skilled employees. This is very pitiful but unfortunately inevitable. The entire transaction has been very complex in many respects but with Kawa we have an investor at our side who believed in the success of our deal at any time.”
Kawa secures a total of 350 from previously 600 jobs in Conergy AG and the global sales units. In Germany 140 out of 280 employments will remain, among these 60 from Conergy AG as well as all 80 jobs in the German sales and service units. As previously, most of the employees will work in Hamburg in the future. The job cuts within Conergy AG also affect the location in Zweibrücken. The warehouses there will be maintained for a six months transition period. 30 employees remain at the site in Zweibrücken. In the international affiliates, Kawa takes over 210 out of 320 employees. The subsidiaries in Spain, France and Greece are not part of the transaction, a correlative agreement could not be reached. The units in India and Czech Republic are not included in the deal either. These five subsidiaries employ currently around 110 staff abroad.
Further approximately 500 employees work at the two production subsidiaries Mounting Systems GmbH and Conergy SolarModule GmbH & Co. KG. For both of these units, the management as well as the preliminary insolvency administrator are in negotiations with potential investors. Conergy will inform on the state of these negotiations as well as on the sales process separately within the next week.