Faced with another green energy transition investment going bad, Danish pension fund ATP said it was disappointed Better Energy has been forced to file for restructuring, and that shareholders’ money in the local renewables firm could not be saved.
In an announcement yesterday, the Danish renewable energy company said it was entering restructuring to rebuild its capital base and stabilise the business.
It said: “The second half of 2024 ended up being a perfect storm of negative market conditions, reduced investor appetite and deferred payments from key partners, which together have meant that Better Energy has filed for restructuring for Better Energy Holding A/S and Better Energy A/S.”
Claus Wiinblad, head of Danish equities at ATP, told IPE: “We have worked hard to find a solution, but unfortunately I have to say that Better Energy has come to a situation where the shareholders’ money cannot be saved.”
ATP bought a 15% stake in the company two years ago, saying it was making “a triple-digit million Danish kroner investment” in the Better Energy, which it said made the deal one of the DKK725.2bn (€97.2bn) statutory pension fund’s biggest investments of 2022.
Wiinblad said the situation at Better Energy was “really disappointing – for the company, for the employees and for us as investors”.
“We saw great potential in the company, which has grown strongly in recent years, but the reality on the European market for green industries has changed very drastically, and has slowed down sharply in a very short time,” he noted.
“We have done everything we could, but the company will now seek a restructuring, and we wish the company good luck with that,” Wiinblad said.
Among other investors involved with Better Energy are Danish pension funds Industriens Pension and AP Pension.
In late 2020, Industriens Pension formed a 50/50 partnership with Better Energy, investing up to DKK4bn in new solar parks the company was building in Denmark and Poland, via both equity and debt financing.
Meanwhile, AP Pension extended a €65m loan to the renewables firm in June 2023 to finance five solar parks in Poland.
Asked to comment on the Better Energy’s current financial woes, a spokesman for AP Pension said: “We are of course following the situation closely, but there is a significant difference between being a co-owner and a lender, as AP Pension is, with solid collateral in the projects.”
IPE has contacted Industriens Pension for comment.
ATP is already suffering from trouble surrounding Swedish battery firm Northvolt, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US last month, with the Danish pension fund admitting this week that the DKK2.3bn it had spent on a 5.3% stake in Northvolt was now worth little.
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