Virtually all of Ørsted's newly issued shares have been purchased by current shareholders or shareholders who have purchased with pre-emptive rights. To be precise, this applies to approximately 99.3 percent of the new shares. Ørsted wrote this in a company announcement on Monday evening.
The shares have been issued as part of a capital increase that will add 60 billion kroner to the company. The Danish state, which owns 50.1 percent of Ørsted, had previously agreed to participate in the capital increase by purchasing new shares for around 30 billion kroner.
Ørsted itself writes that the demand for the remaining shares that have not been purchased with pre-emptive rights has been "extraordinarily high". Ørsted's CEO, Rasmus Errboe, also notes the amount of support.
- I am very satisfied with the great support for our capital injection from small and large investors from Denmark and abroad, including from our main shareholder, the Danish state, he says in the press release.
Ørsted needs the money so that the company can afford to implement planned projects. Originally, Ørsted's plan was to raise money by, among other things, selling ownership interests in the American offshore wind farm Sunrise Wind. But this has not been possible due to uncertainty about the American offshore wind market in the United States.
A number of investment banks had given a guarantee that they would purchase the shares that were not sold in connection with the share increase.
Head of Equity Research: A real success
However, due to the demand for the remaining shares, this will not be necessary, Ørsted writes. This leads Jacob Pedersen, head of equity research at Sydbank, to describe the share issue as a "real success".
- Ørsted did a great job in relation to the size of the share issue and the risks that have been and have emerged along the way, writes Jacob Pedersen in an analysis.
Less than two weeks after Ørsted had announced that it would raise 60 billion kroner via new shares, the US administration ordered that work on the offshore wind farm Revolution Wind be halted.
However, Ørsted assessed that the planned capital increase should be sufficient to complete the project despite the uncertainty caused by the construction halt. Subsequently, a US judge has allowed Ørsted to resume work on Revolution Wind.
As part of the capital increase, Ørsted's existing shareholders were given 15 subscription rights per share. With seven subscription rights, one could buy one new share for 66.60 kroner. If one did not wish to exercise the subscription rights themselves, one could sell them on.
Shareholders who have not purchased new shares in connection with the share increase have had their ownership stake diluted.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
