On November 11, the European Commission (EC) published its final approval report on the acquisition of RWE daughter Innogy by international energy company, E.ON Group.
E-ON and RWE had submitted their intended transaction to the EC for approval in March 2018, with the EC granting preliminary approval for RWE’s acquisition of the E.ON assets ((M.8871 RWE / E.ON ASSETS) in February 2019.
RWE and E.ON have agreed to transfer Innogy's renewable generation business and other E.ON assets to RWE. In turn, E.ON's retail and network business goes to Innogy. As a result, RWE will become a minority shareholder in E.ON and RWE is going to focus on generation while E.ON’s responsibility will be network and sales. Frontier assisted RWE with comprehensive competition analyses into the German and UK electricity generation and wholesale markets.
In its investigation, resulting in the final report published on 11 November, the EC examined the impact on the generation and wholesale supply of electricity, in particular in Germany, where activities of E.ON and RWE in electricity generation are significantly overlapping. The EC concluded that competition on the electricity generation and wholesale markets would not be significantly impeded by the merger as customers were still able to choose between a large number of gas and electricity suppliers.
Frontier regularly advises on mergers at EU and national levels.
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