Seize the Opportunity
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has recently launched a new campaign, 'Seize the Opportunity', which emphasises the benefits that wind power could bring for both energy supply and the environment. The campaign focuses on the opportunities for Europe in responding to the current energy and climate challenges by developing, deploying and exporting wind power technology to the rest of the world.
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{access view=!registered}Only logged in users can view the full text of the article.{/access}{access view=registered}Companies around the world are also seizing the opportunity to increase their part of the pie, which is getting bigger every moment. REpower has been the stake in the battle between Suzlon from India and Areva from France for the last couple of months. Areva was the first party to announce a takeover offer for the German turbine manufacturer in January 2007. Less than a month later Suzlon announced a higher bid. Both companies have raised their bid after that, with Suzlon having the highest bid of € 150 per share (equalling a total value of about € 1.34 billion). Areva announced that it has waived the minimum acceptance condition (50% plus one REpower Share) applicable to its public takeover offer for all outstanding shares of REpower Systems AG. The deadline for the submission of final offers was Friday 4 May 2007.?
REpower has a good reputation and an extensive market share in Europe. That is also the reason Suzlon is so keen to buy the company since their market share is relatively small in Europe. It is much easier to increase market share by buying a competitor than by building up from scratch. But if Suzlon succeeds it means that there will be one less world player on the market and in the light of the capacity issue I wonder if that is a good thing.?
Areva, which currently holds around 30% of REpower, has been a strategic partner and investor in the company since September 2005 and offers transmission and distribution systems to the wind energy market. Both companies could be a good fit, complementing each other. Some people prefer the Suzlon offer above the Areva offer because Areva is also heavily active with nuclear energy.??
But Suzlon is not the only company trying to follow this strategy. Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd has said it may make mergers and acquisitions or forge alliances to help it make a fully fledged push into the European wind power market as well. But no further details about this are announced so far.??
At the time of writing no more news had been released, although by the time you read this the outcome of the India versus France battle may be known. If you want to be sure to know the outcome as soon as it is announced I invite you to keep a close watch at our website (http://www.windtech-international.com/), which is updated with news every day.?
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Floris Siteur
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