Waste company Remondis could buy parts of ailing utility Steag

Utility Steag, which operates one of Germany’s largest coal plant fleets could find a new partial owner in waste company Remondis, Angela Hennersdorf reports for WirtschaftsWoche. Steag, which is owned by several western German cities, is suffering from falling earnings, posting a 20 percent reduction in revenue in 2018. By the mid 2020s, Steag’s shareholders have to find 400 million euros to ensure follow-up financing, but some municipal investors such as Oberhausen and Dinslaken want to get rid of their shares instead, Hennersdorf writes. If Remondis were to buy the cities’ shares, it could become a major owner, together with the city of Dortmund which is holding 36 percent of the shares. Both Steag and Remondis did not comment on the plans.

The large German utilities have seen their business models suffer under the energy transition, amid significant growth in decentralised renewable power in the past decade, the phase-out of nuclear power, and government plans to abandon coal-fired power production.