New York/ Hamburg — The Ameri­can private equity inves­tor KKR has made an offer of €2.8 billion ($3 billion) for the take­over of the German rene­wa­ble energy manu­fac­tu­rer Enca­vis. Enca­vis, based on Grosse Elbstrasse in Hamburg, opera­tes more than 300 wind and solar parks throug­hout Europe — most of them in Germany.

KKR subsi­diary Blitz 21–823 (BidCo) has reached an agree­ment on a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all outstan­ding shares of Enca­vis at an offer price of EUR 17.50 per share.

The offer price is 33% above the volume-weig­h­­ted 3‑month average price on March 5, 2024 and 54% above the closing price of the Enca­vis share of € 11.35 on the same day.

The Ameri­can finan­cial inves­tor belie­ves that it has alre­ady secu­red a major stake in Enca­vis, as major share­hol­ders around the Hamburg billionaire Albert Büll want to sell their shares. Büll and his part­ner Corne­lius Liedke are among the larger real estate inves­tors in Hamburg, having built the Munds­burg Tower, the Mercado in Altona and the Neue Flora musi­cal thea­ter, among others. The moti­va­tion for the sale of its Enca­vis shares is unclear.

The Manage­ment Board and Super­vi­sory Board of Enca­vis have unani­mously voted in favor of the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship and plan to recom­mend that share­hol­ders accept the offer.

KKR has submit­ted the offer in a consor­tium that also includes the Viess­mann Group, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of heating and cooling systems, and the private equity inves­tor Abacon Capital.

The take­over is subject to the achie­ve­ment of a mini­mum accep­tance thres­hold of 54.3 % of all outstan­ding Enca­vis shares and the fulfill­ment of stan­dard offer condi­ti­ons such as appr­oval by super­vi­sory autho­ri­ties, anti­trust autho­ri­ties and foreign direct investors.
The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024.

Enca­vis is then delis­ted from the stock exch­ange and trans­fer­red to private ownership.