White & Case Advises EWE and EWE Association on Sale of 26 Percent of EWE AG to ARDIAN

Global law White & Case LLP has advised EWE AG (EWE) and Ems-Weser-Elbe Versorgungs- und Entsorgungsverband (EWE-Verband) on the sale of 26 percent of the shares in EWE AG to infrastructure investor ARDIAN.

The volume of the transaction has not been disclosed. Its completion is subject to the usual approval of the antitrust authorities and expected to take place in the first quarter of 2020. After completion, the following companies will hold stakes in EWE AG: EWE-Verband with 74 percent (59 percent Weser-Ems-Energiebeteiligungen GmbH, 15 percent Energieverband Elbe-Weser Beteiligungsholding GmbH) and ARDIAN with 26 percent.

EWE, based in Oldenburg, is an innovative service provider in the fields of energy, telecommunications and information technology. With more than 8,500 employees and a turnover of around €5.7 billion in 2018, EWE is one of the largest energy companies in Germany and is predominantly owned by municipalities.

The EWE Association is a special purpose association to which 21 municipalities from the Ems-Weser-Elbe region belong. Its core task is to secure the energy supply in the association's area. The EWE Association is an indirect majority shareholder of EWE AG through its affiliated companies.

ARDIAN is one of the world's leading independent investment companies that manages assets worth around US$96 billion for its investors. In the current infrastructure fund, the largest investor group (more than 20 percent) comes from Germany and is now investing in EWE's growth. In addition, the insurer Talanx will accompany ARDIAN and EWE as a Lower Saxony co-investor.

The White & Case team which advised on the transaction was co-led by partners Jörg Kraffel (Berlin) and Thomas Burmeister (Düsseldorf), and included partners Peter Rosin, Tilman Kuhn (both Düsseldorf), Lutz Krämer and Markus Burianski (both Frankfurt), counsel Carsten Rodemann Christoph Arhold and Anna Burghardt (all Berlin), local partners Hans-Georg Schulze, Andreas van den Eikel (both Berlin), Matthias Grigoleit (Hamburg) and Alexander Lang (Frankfurt), and associates Maximilian von Möllendorff, Carla Weinhardt (both Berlin), Petra Kistner, Verena Rudolph (both Düsseldorf), Sebastian Stütze (Hamburg) and David Pamer (Berlin).

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