By Christoph Steitz and Emma-Victoria Farr
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley is working with Goldman Sachs to explore the sale of its majority stake in German renewable project developer PNE, two people familiar with the matter said, a process that could trigger a bid for the 1.09 billion euros ($1.17 billion) firm.
Goldman Sachs has started to sound out potential private equity suitors regarding their interest in Morgan Stanley’s 50.06% stake in PNE, which is currently valued at 543 million euros, one of the people said.
A more structured sales process is expected to start later in the year and could potentially result in a transaction in the autumn, the people said, adding deliberations were at an early stage and there was no certainty that a deal would happen.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and PNE all declined to comment.
Under German stock market rules, buying Morgan Stanley’s entire stake would trigger a mandatory takeover bid for all of PNE, which develops wind and photovoltaic projects and had a pipeline of 18.9 gigawatts as of end-2024.
The move marks Morgan Stanley’s latest effort to cash in on its stake after a previous attempt to dispose of it ended without success in early 2023, a process that was expected to draw interest from EQT and Engie at the time according to sources familiar with the matter.
Shares in PNE have risen 28% year-to-date to 14.16 euros per share, up more than three times from the 4.00 euros Morgan Stanley paid when it first bought a stake in the company in 2020.
On Thursday, SDAX-listed PNE reported a 73% increase in 2024 core profit (EBITDA) to 69 million euros, expecting it to rise to as much as 110 million in the current year and to reach 140 million by 2027.
($1 = 0.9285 euros)
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Emma-Victoria Farr; Editing by Susan Fenton)
